Virtualized systems are becoming commonplace as companies realize the extent of their physical server sprawl and do their best to correct it. In a move harkening back to the days when multiple applications would share a mainframe, the virtualized option has become more and more popular as businesses see the need for something different. Physical servers are running at 10 to 20 percent of their capacity, but drawing huge amounts of a company’s power and storage space to do so. As a result, VPS options have sprung up and multiplied, each offering a company the chance to host multiple instances of their entire operating system in a non-local framework.
Many companies have jumped at this chance and have made great strides in creating multiple copies of their entire database and application system on one virtual server. But they often do so without being fully aware of the risks this can entail.
From user-created VPS environments that supervisors know nothing about to virtual server sprawls eating up hardware space to placing all applications on a single piece of hardware, virtualized environments come with their own element of risk.
To address this risk, dedicated IT staff and a high-functioning hypervisor are essential. Operating efficiently, IT professionals can access hypervisor data to ensure that the server is being run in such a way that all instances of a company’s applications are being run in isolated, partitioned sections on the same virtual machine. This is in order to ensure that if a crash occurs on one, only that one is affected, and that virtual server footprints are kept to a minimum.
Technology and access always come with moderate risk, but proper management and oversight can ensure that virtualization benefits do not outweigh costs.
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