Every enterprise can benefit from the improved use of information technology (IT) resources. Improved use not only helps reduce costs but also can simplify IT infrastructure, leading to improved operations. A virtual computing infrastructure allows IT staff to increase utilization, reduce cost, heighten availability of mission-critical applications and respond quickly to business needs. However, to take greatest advantage of the benefits of virtualization, IT organizations need an infrastructure element to improve reliability and performance: multi-port network interface cards (NICs).

Moving from Hardware Constraints to Virtualization

IT managers around the globe share a common challenge: keeping up with the unpredictable need for more servers and storage while addressing growing business continuity demands. Yet strategies to manage computing resources more effectively across sprawling enterprises—and amid constant new application development—have not always kept pace. The result is that many IT organizations are severely underutilizing their existing hardware resources while others are constantly reacting to business conditions instead of proactively planning for growth.

Server virtualization is a proven way to overcome this challenge by better utilizing computing resources—improving scalability, manageability and availability while lowering total cost of ownership (TCO). Virtualization software divides a single physical server into several independent virtual machines, each of which can host a separate operating system and applications in complete isolation from other virtual machines on the server (see Figure 1). Having the capability to run multiple virtual machines simultaneously on one physical server enables enterprises to consolidate workloads from several separate physical servers onto one server, thereby reducing the number of servers required for a given workload. Unlike physical servers, virtual machines can be created in a matter of minutes and can be moved from one physical server to another without reconfiguring the operating system or applications. As a result, services can be provisioned faster and resources allocated easily to business units when needed. In addition, virtualization enables IT administrators to proactively manage their systems to help prevent unplanned downtime and increase overall availability.

Building Virtual Infrastructure with VMware

Today, approximately 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies are VMware customers. No matter how large or small the enterprise, adopting a virtual infrastructure enables IT departments to be responsive to business needs while controlling costs.

The primary building blocks of the VMware virtual infrastructure include VMware GSX Server and ESX Server in conjunction with VMware VirtualCenter management software.

VMware GSX Server and ESX Server provide a virtualization layer that allows multiple virtual machines to operate simultaneously on a single physical server. ESX Server provides IT administrators with additional capabilities that give them complete control over the server resources allocated to each virtual machine. GSX Server and ESX Server software typically enable organizations to run one to eight virtual machines perprocessor on 2-way, 4-way, 8-way and 16-way servers, up to a maximum of 64 virtual machines per physical server with GSX Server and 80 virtual machines per server with ESX Server.

VMware VirtualCenter management software is used by system administrators to manage virtual machines across many physical systems. VirtualCenter simplifies the management of virtualized Intel® architecture–based environments, whether they use Microsoft Windows*, Novell NetWare* or Linux* operating systems. In addition, VMware VMotion technology allows administrators using VirtualCenter to migrate a live virtual machine to a different physical server without service interruption, making dynamic workload balancing and zero-downtime hardware maintenance possible (see Figure 2).

VMware virtual infrastructure software allows IT administrators to:

• Manage Intel processor–based hardware as a single logical pool of computing resources
• Streamline server provisioning and management
• Monitor system availability and performance
• Move workloads dynamically across distributed servers without service interruption
• Eliminate scheduled downtime by enabling zero-downtime maintenance
• Secure the environment with robust access control