Virtualization 101

[yurayurayur]

Hi,
does anybody have a nice, comprehensive article regarding virtualization?
Im trying to understand it more in depth , in a way that if someone tomorrow asks me about virtualization, I will be able to explain it in a way that he would understand. so basically I need something covering but in a plain language. wikipedia is way to complicated for me right now.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Yami]

This should be a good guide for you. If there's any concepts you don't quite grasp, report back and I'll explain.
Virtualization - Beginner's Guide

 

[Lexluethar]

Google's.

Realize what drives virtualization, and it's easy to understand. Money (just like everything else).

With virtualization you can run dozens of virtual servers off one physical server. So you can have a chassis of 5 M620 blades, with those blades and the correct configuration (Vmware or Hyper-V) you can run dozens of Server OS's.

Why is that important, well with a space the size of a small refrigerator i can run what would normally take 100 square feet of space to run (less money). Once more I can now specifically design my VM environment so that my VM's are taking just the right amount of resource to run. So now i'm more efficient with my hardware (less money). Finally, i can also do maintenance much more efficiently now because i can v-motion from one blade to another seamlessly and not effect my production environment while patching and fixing things (less down time equals less money).

 

[yurayurayur]

thank you for your replies. i will read the article and hope to understand it well.
Lexluethar, this is in a nutshell, and I kind of knew that before. I guess I want it to be in more depth and thank you for clearing this our for me.
i sure will have more questions soon.

 

[Lexluethar]

How in depth do you want and what flavor of virtualization do you want to know?

We use VMware for 99% of our virtualization, we have hyper-v but don't use it.

WIth VMware you install ESXi on a physical server. ESXi is pretty easy to install and configure, once installed and configured with the right IP scheme you can then use vCenter on another machine (could be your desktop in your office) to manage the physical server. That physical server shows up and Hosts in vCenter once attached. Those Hosts can have any number of VM's running off the resources provided by the Host.

It gets way more complicated from there - just ask. VMware has a class you can go take for this to become certified, it costs 3,000+ bucks to take. But if done right and with the proper experience you can make big money with that cert.

 

[yurayurayur]

i work for an IT hardware reseller company that specialize in servers and my clients are big enterprise level clients that when buying servers they are going to virtualize these servers to get more juice from each server. I would want to know as much as possible about it in the server enterprise level so I could be more technical while dealing with them.

I'm actually preparing to get my A+ hopefully this month and probably will go to Server+ right after. I would like to get certified for Virtualization as well , even for $3000 if its worth the money down the road.

 

[April55]

Hi,
Try having a look at this page. Useful images to try and explain server Virtualisaion and its benefits!

Server Virtulisation | Reduce Server Costs | EBC Group

 

[strollin]

I work as a developer and we use virtual machines to be able to test or software with many different configurations. Before virtualization, we would need a huge lab with many different machines to test with but with virtual machines we can have many different configurations on a single server. Not to mention that with the snapshot feature available with most virtualization environments we can easily switch back and forth between different configs on the same machine.

 

[Bruletech]

Virtualization basically allows you to get the most out of expensive physical servers since most aren't utilized to the 80% sweet spot. Putting a hyper-visor on it (VMware or Hyper-v) allows you to cram many virtual machines (VMs) onto it and more fully utilize the hardware. One box could potentially run a DC, file server, Exchange server, print server, and more. Traditionally a separate box would be used for these things.

 

[Bruletech]

A hyper-visor operating system like VMware will make the server resources (CPU, memory, storage, etc) available as pools of resources from which the VMs on it can draw from to perform their function.