Server Document Management Data Center Stop server sprawl. While 2005 might be seen as the year virtualization arrived in prime time, old and new variations of virtualization indicate even greater things ahead. Learn how server virtualization can help you get a handle on your server document management, mass data storage, and other server storage and management data center issues.

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Stop Server Sprawl

While 2005 might be seen as the year virtualization arrived in prime time, old and new variations of virtualization indicate even greater things ahead.

Every so often the stars align, and certain technologies get anointed by the industry. As the new year gets under way, it might be instructive to take a look back at 2005, when virtualization seemed to dominate discussions about software.

While virtual machines were a hot topic, there are less talked about virtualization strategies that might prove even more pertinent in the years to come. In fact, lost in all the excitement over virtual machines is the reality that there are a variety of virtualization strategies — and each strategy has the ability to address specific needs.

Virtualization's popularity has to do with its philosophical underpinning — the belief that data centers have become swollen with under-utilized servers. It seeks to remedy the problem created by the prevailing "one server, one application" paradigm that results from over-provisioning for peak performance. Server utilization rates can wallow in the 5 percent to 15 percent range. Ultimately, the promise of commodity-based servers has resulted in data centers that are overly expensive to manage, power, and cool. "In fact, the average utilization over the lifetime of a server falls pretty dramatically," according to Joost Pronk van Hoogeveen, Virtualization Product Line Manager at Sun. "While utilization peaks during the holiday shopping season, for the rest of the year servers are running as low as 5 percent to 7 percent of capacity. Because enterprises want to run more applications, and each application requires its own server, we're witnessing sprawl and escalating data center costs. Costs are rising, and enterprises are getting less done on a per machine basis."

While hardware procurement is the most obvious example of the rising costs, in this instance, the most obvious is not the most acute. "As servers are getting more powerful, hardware is getting cheaper," Pronk continues. "If you look at a breakdown of data center costs, management and other operational costs are the growing concerns. Hardware is becoming less of a factor in the total cost of a data center."