Technology

The virtues of virtualization

Saving money, energy and the environment

By John Chivvis

These days, businesses with any kind of IT investment have to deal with “three E’s”—economy, energy, and environment. IT professionals are asked to do more with less in the current economic climate in order to reduce IT operating costs (energy), yet do so in an environmentally conscious way.

Impossible? Not according to the growing number of insurance IT administrators and managers who say it is “virtually” possible through server virtualization. “Server virtualization has helped us reduce our physical server needs by 25%, and that number grows daily,” says Kenny Morris, manager of network services for CRC Insurance Services, Inc., a national wholesale broker that also offers MGA/underwriting services.

Todd Halpin, IT director for Indiana-based Schultheis Insurance, agrees, adding that virtualization has “tons of benefits.” Halpin says that for Schultheis, virtualization has helped reduce the burden on the IT department while at the same time “getting green and getting greenbacks”—saving the environment and reducing energy expenditures.

So what is server virtualization? Basically, it is the migration of one or more physical servers into separate virtual environments on one single physical machine. Software controls allocate physical hardware resources to each virtual server so, in essence, each virtual server “thinks” it is operating as a physical server.

It’s not really a “new” technology, says Morris, because mainframes have been “virtualizing” since the 1960s. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, server and desktop prices dropped significantly. Therefore, Morris says, “server farms” and office networks of desktops and applications steered IT away from virtualization into an era of distributed computing.

As Morris explains, “We got to a point where we were buying servers—because they were relatively inexpensive—and putting one application on each server.” This is still evident in most insurance businesses today as there are separate and multiple servers for mail, files, management systems, databases, and other applications.

Where the 3 R’s meet the 3 E’s

“Reduce, reuse, and recycle” has long been the mantra for saving the environment and energy. But in this economy, server virtualization can first and foremost save businesses money because it reduces the need for physical servers.

Over the past two years, Halpin has cut Schultheis’s server farm in half by virtualizing 7 of their 14 servers. “In fact, recently we had to replace a server so we spent a little more initially, but by virtualizing an extra server on it, we’ve saved an extra $4,400 because now we don’t have to buy the next one,” says Halpin.

Morris says that running 200 different, physical servers had CRC experiencing “server sprawl,” where there are so many servers “sprawled” out that there is no more space.

“About a year-and-a-half ago, we were at a point where we had about six months of space left in our data center,” begins Morris. “We were going to have to knock out a wall for more space, relocate the five people who would be displaced, and add electrical, air conditioning and a generator for the new servers.” The cost, Morris estimated, was between $250,000 and $500,000.

Morris and his team started virtualizing, and over the past 18 months they’ve virtualized 50 of their 200 servers. “We now have more space than we did a year-and-a-half ago, and we didn’t have to expand,” says Morris.

Virtualization also helps with server reuse and server consolidation. In the one-application-to-one-server paradigm, most applications use very little of the server’s processor power. “Many applications on these servers only use 5% or 10% of the processor,” states Morris. A recent study adds to Morris’s estimation, noting that almost one-third of servers in data centers were running at 3% utilization or less.

Halpin has taken a number of smaller applications and virtualized them onto other physical servers. “For example, we use a quoting tool; but it is not processor-intensive, so we virtualized it onto a server that runs another more intensive system,” he says.

By virtualizing, both Halpin and Morris have reduced the number of new server purchases they make. “As servers come to their end-of-life, you have to decide, ‘Do I keep buying servers or do I go virtual?’” asks Morris.

Halpin says that each virtualized server is one less physical machine that uses electricity. He estimates that he saves anywhere from $19 to $29 a month in energy costs for each virtualized server. “It may not seem like much, but when you pile all of the servers together, it affects the bottom line,” says Halpin.

How much? According to research by Dell, Principled Technologies, and Microsoft, a typical blade server uses an average of 454.39 watts of electricity per hour, When multiplied by the 24 hours and 365 days a server runs, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s average retail price of electricity (10.68 cents per kilowatt-hour), the average annual electrical cost to run a server is $424.75.

For Schultheis, seven virtual servers mean an average annual savings of just over $2,973 a year. For the 50 virtual servers at CRC, it’s just over $21,236 in energy savings over the course of a year. Also, as Halpin points out, this is only what it takes to run the server and doesn’t include the energy costs for the air conditioning or other related utilities. Nor does it consider the emissions output from these servers either.

According to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, 2.3 pounds of CO2 are produced for every kilowatt-hour of electricity used. So the aforementioned average blade server contributes more than 9,147 pounds of CO2 a year. To give that some perspective, the EPA estimates that the average passenger car emits 11,450 pounds of CO2 annually. For Schultheis and CRC, together their virtual servers are eliminating a total of 521,379 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

Additional advantages

“Recycling” and “environment” also take on other connotations when it comes to virtualization and savings. In one way, it has to do with the workload of the IT staff when it comes to server launches, administration and maintenance.

When a new server is needed, both Morris and Halpin can bring up a virtual server in a fraction of the time it would take to deploy a physical server. The time savings come from being able to “recycle” a number of steps, settings and configurations by standardizing across virtual servers.

“Physical server deployment used to take weeks because you had to order and get the server, hook it up, and then load the software; now, using pre-configured templates, I recently upped four virtual servers in about 10 minutes,” claims Morris. “The ease of administration is just beautiful.”

Having a virtual environment in which to operate also makes it easier to test new applications and prepare deployment. Virtual servers and networks can be deployed and “recycled” over and over until the server is ready for production. If there is a “mess up,” as Halpin calls it, he can easily revert back to an earlier saved configuration. “Having a virtual test and support area—that extra tool to help out—is really nice,” he points out.

Virtualization is also a lifesaver in terms of disaster recovery. Halpin says that virtualization makes computing environments much more portable. When a server environment is no longer available, virtual servers make it easy to migrate to failover or backup environments.

Schultheis has a fiber-connected, off-site location with its backup servers. If an emergency occurs, virtual servers can be transferred from one location to the other, the same way files are copied onto a server. “Disaster recovery is much easier now because with the virtual servers, we’re back up and running in less than two hours,” says Halpin.

For both Halpin and Morris, there is no way of getting around the fact that server virtualization has saved them time and money; however, it takes planning to make the strategy successful. Halpin says that it requires looking at what servers, systems and applications are running and what can be combined to work best together virtually on one physical server. “You have to ask yourself in what order do you need to replace your servers, how can you make those pieces fit together virtually, and then how or what do you purchase to make it happen?” says Halpin.

Since most “flavors” of server virtualization software are free and virtual servers don’t cost anything to deploy, Morris says there is no downside to using the technology and thus no excuse not to do so. In addition, he advises IT professionals to start building a virtualization skill set and knowledge base. “It helps you leverage saving money and resources because it helps you go further on the money you do have,” says Morris. “And that’s vitally important during a time when there’s a lot less interest in spending money on hardware.”

The author
John Chivvis is a Texas-based writer who specializes in topics of technology implementation. His work has appeared in a number of national and regional publications.