Server Infrastructure On Virtualization

Basic Concept Behind Server Infrastructure on Virtualization (SIV)

Everyone is aware about Server and  Client, and most of us also know it's Architecture and it's Working. But here we will discuss about putting all the Infrastructure on Virtualization.

Traditional Approach In Server Installation

                                                         
                                                                               
                                                                 The idea we are talking about is that instead of installing Server OS directly on physical machine, we will install it on virtualized environment. Main advantage about this concept is that we can make High Availability and less risk of server down condition. In Virtualized environment we get the advantage of portability, beacuse in this we can transfer our server OS to any other virtual system by just coping the file or virtual hard disk to that system and we can run it there very easily in case of hardware failure of one system. We don't need to install anything more nothing to configure, all the configurations will be same as that of it was running on failed system.

Another advatage in this infrastructure is that we can install multiple OS on the same machine and they can run at the same time with there own allocated resources. You can modify these allocated resources anytime as per your need and this all can be done without changing your hardware or adding it physically.

Server Installation Using Virtuaalization

Scope of Virtualization

Virtualization holds many benefits over traditional system which makes it acceptable in Practical implementation. All the organizations invests huge amount on the computer infrastructure and no doubt it demands a lot of maintenance cost  and resources(Human).

                                                                    Answer to these extra costs is Virtualization. So in this Post we will see how it helps in saving our resources.

• As virtualization allow us to install multiple Operating System on a single physical machine, so using it we will eliminate the extra cost and maintenance of all the OS machines by installing them all on a single machine just we need is one machine capable of holding these OS at once.
• As we installed multiple OS on a single machine so we don't need to hire extra persons for maintaining them.
• We can change system configuration by just adding or removing it from virtual machine, so we don't need to bother about H/W.
• Dynamic Requirement: Suppose you just need 20MB of extra storage on a system is it possible in physical machine to add it?  Yes but it will cost too high because you are not going to get any hard disk of 20 MB at least you will get 120 GB or might be 320GB minimum in present time. This is not economic and also not feasible. Solution to this problem is "virtualization" because it provides you the feature of adding Hard disk of any size you need virtually....so you don't need to buy new hard disk and you don't need to go anywhere everything is done by just sitting and adding it virtually
•  Portability: We can transfer our virtual system to any other machine without affecting it or doing anything hard..just we need to do is copy a virtual hard disk and run it on the system on which you want to port the virtual system. 
• Another possibility in Virtualzation is if we build our servers on Virtualized environment and provide services to others. In this case we can make our Server client system cost effective and more secure and it will be more easy to handle it. Because to manage different Servers we don't need to go anywhere as they all are located on a single machine. In this case Esxi-Vsphere can help us. 

Installing and Using VMware Workstation

"VMware Workstation" is a software provided by VMware to create virtual machine on a System.

Major releases:

• 1995 - VMware releases Workstation 1.0 for Linux.
• 2001-11-01 - VMware releases Workstation 3.0.
• 2002-04-09 - Workstation 3.1 is released at Microsoft Tech-Ed 2002
• 2003-03-23 - Workstation version 4.0 is released.
• 2004-04-05 - VMware announces the release of Workstation version 4.5.
• 2005-04-11 - Workstation version 5.0 is released.
• 2005-09-12 - VMware updates Workstation to version 5.5.
• 2007-05-09 - VMware releases Workstation version 6.0.
• 2008-09-23 - VMware releases Workstation version 6.5.0
• 2009-10-26 - VMware releases Workstation version 7
• 2011-09-14 - VMware releases Workstation version 8 

 You can find out system Requirements for using VMware Workstation from here

 VMware Workstation allows one physical machine to run multiple operating systems simultaneously. Biggest advantage of using virtualized environment is that you can migrate your virtual system to any pyhsical system having VMware workstation and can use it easily there. This is only possible because you just need to copy one file which is virtual hard disk created by VMware Workstation. When we install any OS on VMware Workstation it is saved just as one file on physical device so in any case if your Host Operating system fails you just need to copy the file and run it on another system which makes it comfortable and secure to use.


Installing Vmware Workstation and working with it:

• Get your VMware Workstation From Here.
• Start VMware Workstation and enter your serial number.You need to do this only once — during the installation process when prompted or through Help > Enter Serial Number.If you don't already have a serial number from a previous installation, the installer prompts you for the serial number during installation. If you choose not to enter the serial number during installation, you can enter it later by going to Help > Enter Serial Number.
• Create a virtual machine using the New Virtual Machine Wizard.
•  Custom your machine by selecting your requirements from the wizard
• Install a guest operating system in the new virtual machine. you can install guest OS by image or by media((CD-ROM).  
• 
•  Start using your virtual machine.

Basic concept of Virtualization

Virtualization in computers is a concept of creating virtualized version of any component rather then its physical or original version, Component may be Hardware , Operating Sysytem, Storage device or Network device.
                           Virtualization provides us benefits over traditional system in case of implementing any thing new to use. Rather then spending high costs to buy any infrastructure you can do same on your existing  system if it meets the basic requirements of virtualization and Hardware configuration minimum required for implementing system and this all can be done without affecting your system or its working.
                    For basic use of virtualization on any normal system you can use Virtual PC or VMware Workstation Get your VMware Workstation 8.0 Here and Virtual PC from Here

Showing multiple OS on a single machine using Virtualization