Keep Your Virtualization Platforms Clear of Bottlenecks and Wasted Space with Virtualization Software Like V-locity

Facing increasing pressure to cut costs and institute more efficient and productive business practices many companies are now embracing the technology of virtualization, an effective method of reducing wasted IT hours and creating new opportunities for innovation and growth. The adoption of a virtualization platform enables companies to better manage their information, dramatically reducing the hours that had been dedicated to basic IT functions like troubleshooting and maintenance, and opening the door to more valuable activities like advancing a company’s business.

The need for a virtualization infrastructure inside a company is obvious when they examine how their resources are being allocated. In many cases companies are operating multiple servers with each hosting a single application or operating system, never coming close to maximizing the capacity that the server is capable of handling. This is simply wasted space which equates to wasted dollars.

Operating multiple servers that utilized a small fraction of their capacity was a common practice among IT admins for good reason. There was a tremendous fear that if a company placed all of their applications and operating systems on a single server and something were to go wrong with one of those functions then all of them would be at risk, essentially paralyzing  a business. Spreading them across multiple servers may have wastes free space but it seemed like an acceptable solution given the potential consequences of the alternative.

Space isn’t the only thing wasted when companies manage multiple servers; it is a constant drain on a company’s IT resources. With everything spread across different servers the drain on an IT admin can be overwhelming and they are often spending the majority of their time trying to maintain the cumbersome systems or troubleshooting problems. This practice is a tremendous waste of money, nothing more than dedicating resources to remain stagnant.

With the advancement of virtualization platforms the old system of managing multiple servers is eliminated, effectively reducing a company’s operating costs and freeing up IT to do what it was intended to do, innovate.

What virtualization allows a company to do is condense all of their operating systems and applications onto one physical machine which is capable of partitioning off each operating system and application which can be accessed through virtual machines. Each virtual machine shares the resources of that single physical machine, dramatically reducing the hours spent by IT managing multiple servers.

Because those operating systems and applications can be partitioned on the physical machine the threat of a complete crash and loss of all data is no longer real. This is because virtualization provides security measures to ensure that if something is wrong with one area it won’t automatically affect the other areas.

The benefits of virtualization can be seen almost immediately as a company becomes much more efficient, not only in IT but across the board as all employees are capable of working more productively when the information they need is accessible.

Of course the capabilities of virtualization can only be maximized when a company ensures their infrastructure is operating at its maximum potential. The workload attributed to virtualization is staggering and can cause some issues related to I/O bandwidth bottlenecks, virtual machine competition for shared I/O resources, and problems related to virtual disks that are set to dynamically grow do not resize when data is deleted- bringing back the issue of wasted free space.

Where there is a problem there is always a solution and to handle the issues that could affect a virtualization platform companies like Diskeeper have introduced software that is capable of addressing those problems and solving them quickly. For their part Diskeeper has designed their V-locity software as a virtual platform disk optimizer which not only performs defragmentation functions, but also synchronizes the complex and ongoing activity between host and multiple guest operating systems in a virtualized environment.

V-locity effectively alleviates that ‘virtual’ disk bottleneck for virtual machines which in turn creates a faster and more efficient computing platform for new consolidation and provisioning initiatives without the need to add additional hardware. The virtualization software is also capable of coordinating resource usage so that the competition for shared I/O resources is better handled. V-locity also frees up vital storage resources by eliminating virtual disk “bloat,” this is the wasted disk space that occurs takes when virtual disks are set to dynamically grow but don’t then shrink when users or applications remove data. This is done through V-locity’s efforts in compacting the virtual disk, thereby preventing waste and allowing IT managers to better allocate their virtual storage resources.

For any company that has taken the positive step toward implementing virtualization platforms, or is about to implement the technology in their business, be sure to get the most out of the technology. Keep your virtualization infrastructure clear of any roadblocks with virtualization software like V-locity.