Diamond Technologies

Virtualization: the "Green" IT Solution

Updated systems improve efficiency, save money and energy

October, 2009

Sometimes it's a challenge for IT professionals to translate their jargon into language that business executives can understand, but there's no way these two sentences can be misinterpreted:

It saves money. It's good for the environment.

Diamond Technologies uses those sentences often when discussing virtualization, a concept that can be difficult to understand. But more and more leaders in business and government want to know more about virtualization, because they're finding out that it's a way to reduce computing costs, increase system reliability, save on energy expenses and free up office space.

Diamond Technologies, information technology experts serving government, the private sector and non-profits, has assisted private businesses and government agencies, including the Delaware Department of Transportation, New Castle County and the City of Wilmington, with their virtualization solutions.

In DelDOT's case, the shift to virtualization means that eight physical servers running VMware virtualization software will do the work formerly done by more than 100 servers. Four servers are doing the work formerly done by 44 servers. Then, when DelDOT doubled the memory in the servers from 32GB to 64GB, it expanded its capability to support 100 virtual servers.

DelDOT began exploring the use of VMware after Kirk Patti, one of its server administrators, began using VMware for testing and debugging multiple operating systems from his desktop computer, according to Tara Stewart, DelDOT's chief information officer for technology and support services. "He realized the potential benefits for utilizing VMware in the DelDOT production server environment, and for supporting DelDOT's disaster recovery efforts," Stewart said. "Using VMware virtualization software has played a significant part in enabling DelDOT to defer expansion of electrical and cooling systems in our data centers," she said.

Virtualization has resulted in similar benefits for the City of Wilmington and New Castle County. For Wilmington, six physical servers in two datacenters will do the work formerly done by more than 75 servers. For the county government, nine physical servers at two sites will do the work formerly done by about 70 servers.

Here's how businesses and government agencies can benefit from virtualization, according to Diamond Technologies partner Chuck Burns:

Consolidating servers reduces costs for hardware, power consumption and cooling, and also reduces amount of floor space needed.
Most servers are used to only 15-20 percent of capacity; in a virtualized environment, server utilization increases to about 80 percent, giving better use of resources.
Virtualization speeds recovery from planned and unplanned system outages, allowing business to continue, virtually uninterrupted.
Virtualization lets businesses run Windows, Netware, Linux, and some UNIX operating systems on the same hardware, at the same time, without conflict.
Individual desktops can be virtualized, strengthening security for the organization's computer system and the data stored on it.
New system deployments take significantly less time.
The administration of hundreds of servers may now take place with a single management interface.

Roland Scarinci, a practice manager for Diamond Technologies, helps take some of the mystery out of virtualization.

Think of how a single computer holds an operating system (like Windows), applications (for word processing, database management, accounting and so on), and all the data associated with files created in those applications. Then think about how a Zip file is used to collect multiple files, compress them and save them in a single location. Virtualization works in a similar fashion, he says, taking the operating system, applications and data from a single computer, encapsulating them and stashing it all on what's called a SAN unit. (SAN stands for "storage area network.") When the virtual system is powered on, the encapsulated material behaves like an isolated physical server called a virtual machine. This encapsulation allows multiple virtual machines to run simultaneously on a single physical server.

"In a virtualized system, the organization will still be using two or more servers. So, if one is working near capacity, or crashes unexpectedly, Scarinci says, the virtualized applications and files will migrate seamlessly to a different server.

"When an organization is running out of room for its servers, needs to upgrade an outdated system or wants to improve its backup and storage capabilities, virtualization is usually the best way to go," Scarinci says. "It won't take long to recover the initial investment through lower operational, maintenance and utility costs."

About Diamond Technologies:

Diamond Technologies, based in New Castle, Del., believes in "taking the uncertainty out of IT" by offering comprehensive Information Technology solutions to business, government and nonprofit organizations. Its clients include numerous Delaware state agencies, New Castle County government, the City of Wilmington, the National Constitution Center, Wawa convenience stores, Auto Port Inc. and Animas Corp. It has earned recognition for its rapid growth through selection to the Inc. 500 and the Philadelphia 100.