How We Joined the Virtualization Nation

This post was contributed by Nate Solloway, a new guest blogger to our team. Nate has been supporting the infrastructure needs of Community IT Innovators (CITI) clients since 1998. Community IT Innovators (CITI) is an employee-owned company committed to helping social mission organizations effectively use technology.

When it came time to plan our latest network upgrade at Community IT Innovators we opted to virtualize our server infrastructure. As a typical 60-person organization we have file, mail, database, Web and remote access servers. With our systems and software going through the usual 3-5 year replacement cycle, our IT staff was looking for a solution provided the most flexibility going forward. Virtualization provided the benefits of a smaller server room footprint and a smaller carbon footprint. What is virtualizatioin, you ask? Check out this video answering just that question from ZDNet and this article from TechSoup called Virtualization 101 for more.

We began to explore virtualizing our servers while troubleshooting existing installations with performance monitoring tools. We were consistently surprised by what a small percentage of the processor these hulking servers were using most of the day. Large in footprint and small in efficiency, we began exploring products that would allow us to consolidate the need to keep operating systems separate but on a shared piece of hardware.

Virtualizing the standalone servers in our server room proved to be consistent with the green IT guidelines that are starting to trickle down to even the smallest organizations. CDW's data centers studied the effects of virtualizing servers and power consumption. A standalone server had 75% percent of the carbon footprint of a mid-sized automobile. The same functionality virtualized and then sharing hardware had a carbon footprint of 1/6 of the original with no loss in delivering services.

Reduced carbon footprint is nice for the environment and the bottom line. Most network administrators don't see the power bills, but I bet most accountants at organizations would like to see that cost reduced.

Virtualization has proven a boon to network adminstration as well. Hardware conflicts are few because each virtualized instance has identical hardware. Virtualizing also reduces fear of applying patches. Each server is just a file so it is easy enough to copy or track changes. If a service pack or update creates problems, reverting to the previous night is just a mouse click away.

Our virtualized infrastructure has created flexibility for our developers. If they need a new server to test a configuration no hardware has to be purchased and we can copy an existing setup. Our testing and lab has now also been standardized on virtualized instances. Our staff is able to stand up the latest products in minutes rather than hours.

TechSoup Global has also virtualized its server infrastructure recently. You can read about some of the benefits experienced in this blog post from Jim Lynch.

In total, virtualization is a panacea that has solved a number of administrative and technical hurdles for us. We'll be continuing to blog about virtualization in coming weeks. If you've heard the buzzwords and been curious, we'll be walking you through setting up your first virtualized server and familiarizing you with the technology. Virtualization is one of the easiest new technologies to grasp once the initial hurdle is jumped.