It is difficult for companies to keep their costs low
while expanding their business and adding to their client base. Problems
arise because it is hard to expand without incurring additional costs
from promotion and extra employees. Trying to find the middle ground
between saving money and expansion leads to bad decision making that
hurts the company. What many companies must do first is examine their
infrastructure to find other areas where money can be saved.
In many cases the systems that companies use every day to manage their
business struggle to be efficient uses of resources. Multiple server
environments are a perfect example of a system that creates more
expenditures than are necessary for a company and limit the funds that
can be allocated elsewhere. Multiple server environments can hold a
company back from reaching its maximum potential.
Multiple server environments are created when companies put their
information, operating systems and applications on several different
servers that must be maintained by IT administrators. Due to the fact
that each machine is separate from the others the IT admins have to
update, backup and maintain each server individually. These processes
are time consuming and hinder the IT admins ability to manage other
projects.
Multiple server environments also require significant investments to
store and maintain the servers that have already been purchased. The
cost is seen as necessary by companies using these environments and can
cause funding shortages in other areas like expansion and development.
These shortages can damage the employee morale and limit the potential
of the brand.
Solutions like funding cuts are often used but are not a true solution
to the problem; it is a temporary fix that will need to be addressed as
the same problem continues to arise. To solve the problem once and for
all many companies have adopted a virtualization infrastructure that
eliminates the issues caused by multiple server environments.
Virtualization infrastructures let a company condense their information,
operating systems and applications to one server. The data can then be
accessed by different virtual computers that all share the computing
resources housed on the single server. Operating an infrastructure in
this way eliminates the need to purchase, maintain and store multiple
servers. IT admins can quickly do the required work to the lone machine
and focus their attention in other areas where they are needed.
A virtualization infrastructure provides the same level of security that
can be found in multiple server environments. Different operating
systems and applications are stored in their own secure areas on the
server. If a problem occurs in one area the other areas are intact and
can still be accessed.
To fully utilize a virtualization infrastructure a company must protect
the system from harm. I/O bandwidth bottlenecks from accelerated
fragmentation, virtual machine competition for shared I/O resources not
being prioritized properly across the platform and virtual disks set to
dynamically grow not resizing when data are deleted are all issues that
can occur on a virtualization infrastructure.
Fortunately protecting a virtualization infrastructure does not require a
large expense or a great deal of time, all a company must do is install
virtualization software. Virtualization software like V-locity from
Diskeeper Corporation can keep the problems associated with
virtualization from ever arising. V-locity acts as a virtual disk
optimizer and performs background optimization that will improve the
functionality and operability of the infrastructure.
V-locity eliminates bottleneck issues by creating a fast and efficient
computing platform for new consolidation and provisioning initiatives
without requiring the addition of hardware. V-locity also eliminates the
competition for I/O resources by coordinating resource usage. It can
also compact the virtual disk to prevent the virtual disk from “bloat.”
Protecting the infrastructure from these problems allows the IT admins
to focus their skills in more important and productive ways.
Companies are always going to feel pressure to minimize their costs
while growing their business but do not have to hope for different
results using the same methods. Using a virtualization infrastructure
and protecting it with virtualization software will help free company
funds for promotion and growth that have been tied up in inefficient
setups for a long time.
