At the recent Gartner Symposium in Orlando, Florida, David Cappuccio, managing vice president and chief of research for the Infrastructure teams with Gartner presented his pick 10 technology-related trends that will impact your enterprise infrastructure in the coming year. At the top of his list is virtualization which Cappuccio says will ultimately drive more companies to treat IT like a business.

In a related “top 10” pick (#8 to be exact), is related to virtualization: “Virtualization is one of the most critical components being used to increase densities and vertically scale data centers. If used wisely, average server performance can move from today’s paltry 7% to 12% average to 40% to 50%, yielding huge benefits in floor space and energy savings. Two issues that need to be considered going forward are the number of cores per server — four- and eight-core systems are becoming common, and 16 cores will be common within two years — and overall data center energy trends,” Cappuccio said.

The timing of Gartner’s selection of virtualization as being number one in influencing IT trends in the coming year comes on the heels of CIO’s “Seven Reasons to consider Virtualization” which appeared only the week before: (more detailed descriptions available at CIO).

1. It enables you to get the most out of your server hardware.

Many servers typically run for most of the day at very low levels of utilization. Since many virtual machines can run on one server, you substantially reduce the total expenditure for hardware.

2. It will allow you to set up redundant servers for better fault tolerance.

Big servers are typically set up for better fault tolerance than small servers. Two big servers, for instance, can allow for migration of applications and provide better fault tolerance than a dozen small servers, while using less energy and being easier to manage.

3. Management is simplified.

Since all the operating systems on a hypervisor can be administered through a single interface, and systems can be given more computing resources as needed, it can be much easier to manage a dozen virtual servers than a dozen separate physical systems.

4. You can partition applications on separate OSs for greater reliability.

Normally, a physical server will run one operating system, and that OS will have multiple server applications installed on it–a Web server, email server, database server, and so forth. By partitioning applications in different virtual machines, each application has its own OS and resources, and is less likely to interfere with other applications.

5. Provisioning new servers for prototyping, testing and migration is simplified.

With virtualization, creating an additional server for testing takes a few minutes, and doesn’t require any additional hardware. Since existing VMs can be cloned with all operating system configurations and applications, it’s a very simple process duplicate a production system to test new patches or a new version of an application.

6. You can save energy.

A large server hosting dozens of VMs may not use any more energy than one small server at low levels of utilization, and it can replace dozens of small servers.

7. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure can save you a fortune on PCs.

In addition to virtualizing server OSs and applications, you may want to consider virtualizing desktops. VDI allows you to run a thin client on existing desktop hardware or new thin client hardware, and access a virtual Windows 7 or other desktop operating system. Management can also be simplified, since patches to Windows and applications can be applied once and take effect for every system on the VDI server.

For more information on virtualization and what it can offer your business, contact Venyu today.