Date of Award

Fall 11-1-2007

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Information Systems (MSIS)

First Advisor

Wayne Pauli

Second Advisor

Mark Moran

Third Advisor

Robert Tuscherer

Abstract

Virtualization entails taking a physical hardware server and emulating several servers via software. This allows the consolidation of several servers to run on one single hardware platform, eliminating the need to have several independent hardware machines. This project entails the research of server virtualization and implantation of virtualization into a data center environment where hundreds of physical servers are running. The problem today is that hardware for servers are not being utilized. The hardware has become so advanced that the average day to day activities just don't need to power of today's computing. Hardware servers are taking up room, power and administrative time when many of these servers can be consolidated but due to political restraints (this project can't share with that project), logical restraints (good practice to have development separate from production) or different operating systems (Windows versus Linux) these servers functions can not be consolidated. Virtualization allows these servers to be consolidated on to a single server or just a few servers by making each server it's own virtual image. A hardware server can easily emulate up to 8 servers. Instead of having 8 servers in a rack, now you only need one. Each image is still independent of the other images, yet all reside on the same server. However not all servers are good candidates for virtualization. This project will research which servers make good candidates and which do not. The project will step through the process of testing virtualization, finding a product that suits the needs of the environment and then implementing the product in phases. This paper will show that using virtualization is a valuable asset to any IT environment. Used properly virtualization can be a tremendous cost savings, administration savings, space savings and power savings. While virtualization may not be the wave of the future it is, however, the accompaniment of the future and used in conjunction with dedicated physical servers makes for a great partnership in the data center environment and any environment for that matter.

Comments

dsu-th-241

Download

Share

COinS