Servers for virtualization - how to avoid the money-losing?

Server for virtualization is a high-capacity hardware device that can host the multiple independent operating systems or the enterprise applications.

Using of the such servers (virtualization hosts) makes companies free from the purchasing a physical server hardware for each logical virtual machine (Virtual Machine) and for hypervisor software. Its enable system administrators to manage centrally and effectively the entire IT infrastructure of the company, to protect “critical” services and restore their work quickly even after the serious failures.

The features and the scopes of virtualization servers

Imitation of a hardware, of OS, of the programs and drivers on the virtualization server makes the functionality of the VMs hosted on it almost indistinguishable from the functionality of real PCs. Also, the virtual operating systems from the one server can be duplicated on the another one. It allows to combine all the hardware into a common pool and ensure more efficient using of the hardware resources.

To distribute their hardware resources among the virtual machines the servers for virtualization are equipped with Intel® VT or AMD-V™ technology. The deployment of virtualization is carried out through the hypervisors based on VMWare or Microsoft Hyper-5 environments (less often - KVM, XEN, vSphere, because of their little functionality).

Servers for virtualization mostly used in companies:

• with a branched or delimited structure;
• with a single database accessed by a large number of users;
• with serious information of the security requirements;
• with centralized management of IT infrastructure;
• with the incompatible applications for each other to work.

The choose a server for virtualization will be the best solution for a business that concerns one or more items on this list.

How to choose a server for virtualization

The selection of a server for virtualization will depend on its hardware which is determined by the characteristics below:

• Processor cores. For each virtual machine with a server it’s necessary to highlight at least one processor with a certain number of the cores and with a frequency. The multiprocessor systems with a physical CPU, with overclocking the capabilities, with a hyper-accuracy, with the Turbo Boost applications allow to perform the complex operations faster and more efficiently;
• RAM. The number of RAM arrays is determined by a type of OS and the types of the tasks which were assigned. It is also important that the RAM has an ECC error detection and elimination module for more stable system operation;
• Drives. SSDs or HDDs with a SAS interface are best for speeding up the virtualization servers. It isn’t recommended to use SATA drives in the servers for virtualization because they don’t support the parallel requests.

Also, the power indicators in the moment of choosing virtualization server hardware will be affected by the amount of necessary resources for comfortable and efficient work of each employee.

Dell and HPE Virtualization Server Solutions

The most popular solutions for fast and high-quality virtualization are Dell and HPE servers. Its design allow them to be deployed quickly and easily maintained. The various solutions of these servers can be used both in the field of a small business and in the large companies.

To create a virtual environment using the various platforms (most often VMware products: Workstation, Player, Server, Ace, ESX Server, Virtual Center, Fusion) servers can be used:

• DELL R730xd 128 GB equipped with 2 Xeon E5-2680v4 2.4GHz 14 Core processors combined with SSDs, DDR4 (2400MHz) memory and Dell PERC H730 + Cache RAID controllers;
• DELL R630 256 GB with 2 Xeon E5-2699v4 2.20GHz 22 Core processors, DDR4 (2400MHz) memory, with SSDs;
• HPE DL360 Gen9 256 GB Dual Xeon E5-2690v4 2.60GHz 14 Core, DDR4 (2400Hz), SSDs, HPE Smart Array P440ar + 2GB Cache RAID Controller.

The presented server solutions for virtualization are simple to install and comfortable to use due to the logical arrangement of the components and the power supplies. They will be the best choice for creating the data centers designed to install 10, 25, 50, 100 virtual machines with the ability to scale as part of an ergonomic infrastructure without installing a large number of racks. At the same time, a scaling is possible both through clustering and through the installation of more productive and powerful components.

Our company offers a selection of not so expensive servers for virtualization with a high-performance and fault-tolerant. Also, we help you configure a server hardware taking into account the specifics of work and the tasks of each client company.