VMware Server Virtualization

Hostway’s Virtualized Dedicated Servers allow businesses at all levels to leverage the benefits of VMware server Virtualization without the need for significant upfront expenditure for server, SAN storage, network and security devices.

VMware environments can be complex to manage and require a significant level of expertise and certification. That's why you can rely on Hostway's expert knowledege, skills and staff to support and run your own 24/7 VMware environment for you.

Why Virtualize?

3 key reasons why more and more companies are opting to virtualize their IT infrastructure are:

1. Organisations today utilize computers and software far more intensively in everyday business than can ever have been realistically envisaged. As a result, the computing power we require and the amounts of data that are critical to our businesses are increasing constantly.
   
   
2. At the same time, the purchase and maintenance costs of running all these computers and servers is also increasing exponentially.
   
   
3. Not only that, but the future of our environment is in the balance as we each strive to improve the technologies we depend on.

Virtualization of IT infrastructure is being heralded as the future model by which IT will support high-performance organisations, and Hostway is very much a part of that movement.

• Virtualization offers a flexible and efficient way of delivering IT processing power and applications at exactly the time and place needed, while minimising overcapacity, redundancy and unnecessary costs.
  
  
• With a virtualization layer in place, organisations can share their computing capacity across all business systems, leading to an overall reduction in redundant data centre capacity and an increased use of base assets.

How Does VMware Server Virtualization Work?

In essence, virtualization lets you transform hardware into software.

• Hostway employ the VMware ESX Server platform to transform or “virtualize” the hardware resources of an x86-based server —including the CPU, RAM, hard disk and network controller—to create a fully functional virtual machine that can run its own operating system and applications just like a “real” computer.

• Multiple virtual machines share hardware resources without interfering with each other so that you can safely run several operating systems and applications at the same time on a single server.
  
  
• Hostway's VMware platform is summarised in the diagram below. By decoupling the entire software environment from its underlying hardware infrastructure, virtualization enables the aggregation of multiple servers, storage infrastructure and networks into shared pools of resources that can be delivered dynamically, securely and reliably to applications as needed.

	Diagram showing Basic Virtual Infrastructure

VMware Server Virtualization - Key Benefits

Hosted virtual machines deliver better availability than dedicated servers because they can be migrated from one server to another with no downtime. Hosted virtual machines are also easier to scale without purchasing additional hardware, and more secure because each virtual machine is completely abstracted from the hardware and isolated from other virtual machines.

Virtualized VMware Servers allow you to -

1. Enjoy superior levels of agility, performance, scalability, and business continuity.
2. Reduce hardware costs while ensuring your critical applications remain available and responsive to customers.
3. Consolidate IT Infrastructure and save power.
4. Leverage existing processes, certifications, skills, and industry leading 24x7 Data Centres.
5. Save power & consolidate server sprawl.

Additional benefits include -

• optimum availability
• dynamic load balancing
• flexibility to provision and deploy new workloads in minutes, not hours
• rapid recovery from failures
• pay only for the computing capacity you require

For further infomation please call us on 0808 180 1880 (free within the UK) or +44(0)20 7538 8000 (outside the UK), or alternatively send an email to solutions@hostway.co.uk