Virtualization in Today's IT World (Research Paper Sample)

Virtualization in Today’s IT World Travis Redway Excelsior College Abstract This paper will explore the vast amount of information and research regarding Virtualization benefits and impacts within the IT World today. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is shaping the face of how companies can easily and securely deploy Virtual Machines (VMs) from high-powered servers directly to their users. The will cover how this simplifies administration, due to a centralized location of all user's desktops or sessions, their settings and streamed applications versus having individually to stand alone units at each user's workstation. This paper will explore how virtualization how the cost savings from requiring less workstation horsepower, to fewer physical servers, all while doing this reduces the carbon footprint due to less power. It will also cover the different offerings from Citrix and VMware, two of the leading providers of virtualization solutions in today's market. This topic is chosen because of the massive impact and influence this is having in today's IT World, especially with the big push for Cloud Computing and scalability. This technology is the forerunner for shaping how today d IT environments operate from small to large corporations. It is fascinating in such a short time how far it has advanced, but a simple look around the many offerings from just about every major company, especially big names such as Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, are providing and pushing their cloud experience running on the backbone of virtualization. Introduction Business world depends so much on the ability to conquer the competition at all level in order to realize success. Competitive business will strive to find the best value for a dollar by way of choosing the available resources (Carling & Buller, 2011). The evolving technology highly drives business entities, and most of the businesses are becoming more efficient and highly competitive. It is at this point that virtualization comes in (Golden, 2013). The work of virtualization in the current business world is to offer the effective solution that is very important in saving costs that are associated with hardware, Time management, and the general improved system management. The model of technology that is considered of standard is known to go by the rule of one server one application (Portnoy, 2012). A good example is when an organization is in need of a database solution then system administrator is expected to design a solution that will meet the requirement. The server has been there for a long time, however; it has failed to meet most of the desired goals of the business on utilizing hardware. Just a smaller section of the computers is put into use when the rest go for waste (Honkanen, 2008). From this technology has been integrated into huge humdrum of the activities of every day, which has resulted to growing demand on processing power and capacity. Server Virtualization is different from the standard model as it gives organizations the opportunity to consolidate various applications and multiple services to one physical server, it increases capacity and at the same time lowering operational costs. Virtualization gives the organization the chance of enjoying vast flexibility when responding to external and internal forces of change (Golden, 2013). Virtualization allows for greater opportunity on scalability and the potential in growth more than it is with the physical environment. The two major contributors of Virtualization in the world are Microsoft that has Hyper-V solution and the VMware, which has ESX model. Even though all these models are of great importance, they have their distinguishing characteristics. A good example is that of ESX that is a driver model that is installs hypervisor on the hardware (Carling & Buller, 2011). It works as an intermediary of virtual machine and hardware of the server. In the case of Hyper-V is an indirect model that installs on bare metal. What Virtualization Mean Virtualization has advanced to software technology that assists in transforming the landscape of information technology (IT) completely altering the way computing resources is utilized. In the contemporary world, most powerful computer hardware (×86) that was intended to run only one-Operating system (OS) and a single application is enormously being underutilized at this level (Portnoy, 2012). One of the solutions required to counter underutilization is the use of virtualization that give users the chance to operate various virtual machines on just a single machine and then share resources of the only computer all over the multiple environments (Golden, 2013). So many ways are used to implement virtual machines when every machine can run different OS and several other applications on a very physical computer. In addition, another virtualization involves coming u with numerous physical resources as servers or storage coming up to be single virtual resource. The idea involves consolidation of more physical resources into one virtual resource. A good example includes the interconnection of several switches to come up with a single and very logical device being managed as a single chassis. Provisions by virtualization in this very case give the same position of performance, availability, and another modular chassis (Golden, 2013). The merits include things like reduced space and power being required and the deployment cost going even lower. Types of Virtualizations Virtualization has in the post evolved beyond a straightforward server virtualization introducing newer avenues of making virtualization a more powerful platform. Some of the technologies include: Application Virtualization The fact that server can be virtualized then it is very possible for the applications virtualization. There is a speedy increase in the popularity of products such as XenApp and ThinApp. Streaming or delivery of various applications to esteemed users without necessarily deploying to the premises of users is currently made much easier to administrators. The depicted managerial and control ensures that application virtualization becomes very plausible. It can be witnessed in organization of big Fortune 500, which is already deploying most of application virtualization. End-point Virtualization Under this type of virtualization, more than virtualized desktop infrastructure (VDI) is currently under the conversation. Currently, most of the organizations are working hard to redefine how the end-point is seen and how they can ensure that resources are fully utilized. It is usually known as the hardware abstraction, and end-point has evolved from big PCs to a very thin and zero computing clients. In today's world, the devices are being adapted to a methodology known as rip-and-replace and are expected to break the barrier of $100. What this mean is that all required administration is carried out at the data center level and that damaging end-point becomes a very easy thing. Network Virtualization The virtualization is also called software-Defined network (SDN), there is greater control by the administration over the network infrastructure as brought by network virtualization. In the case where only one-physical NIC experienced some limitations, rand new technologies provide for many virtual networking is placed on a corporate network. Security Virtualization Deployment of security platforms have been done by most organization in addition to virtual machines (VM), putting the hardened physical devices. Security appliances have been very appealing within organizations due to their flexibility and specific functions (Portnoy, 2012). A good example is when one can afford to have security appliances like VM alone performing data-loss prevention (DLP) or just intrusion detection services (IDS), it would be a very beneficial and strategic deployment. User Virtualization Most of the organizations are finding ways through which they can abstract layers of the users from devices, end-points, and applications due to the presence of BYOD and IT computerization being its way. The idea of user virtualization was then brought up and implemented. Solutions that are found from RES, AppSense, and from particular platform-to-platform and application to application. Principally, users can carry out settings as they migrate from some applications and systems. Storage Virtualization There is a reasonable need to maximize efficiency, as there is the possibility of storage being pricey. It is very possible to have a logical carving up of a single storage controller, and to administrators they look like standalone units (Golden, 2013). Most projects has their list topped with the need to have storage being more efficient, and controller multi-tenancy qualifies to be an example of the way storage virtualization have a role in the current IT world. Server Virtualization Because server virtualization is still in the evolution expansion stages, Server virtualization has also been considered in the list of types of virtualization. Even as the ground is prepared for server virtualization, greater emphasis is placed on how virtual environment can be put into a better use. The need for virtualization has continued to increase and that incorporation of virtualization efficiency into the current data center. In today's IT world, server virtualization market has risen up repeatedly and the rate at which Microsoft server 2012 Hyper-V infrastructure has been on the rise. Revisiting of virtual servers by most organization is more than ever. There are higher chances that more innovation surrounding servers will increase with the current increase in server density and new platforms being more available. Since more efficient environment is highly being sort, there are higher chances that growth of virtualization will increase. Organizations will begin to experience organic growth due to advanced virtuali...