April 08, 2005, 9:51 AM — Last week we looked at the destruction of sensitive data when having hard drives replaced in your Windows servers. This week, I share my thoughts on the top five benefits of server consolidation/virtualization.
There are many benefits to consolidating the number of Windows servers in your environment by taking advantage of the many different server virtualization products (i.e. VMWare and Windows Virtual Server) on the market. These include:
1. Lower number of physical servers - you can reduce hardware maintenance costs because of a lower number of physical servers.
2. By implementing a server consolidation strategy, you can increase the space utilization efficiency in your data center.
3. By having each application within its own "virtual server" you can prevent one application from impacting another application when upgrades or changes are made.
4. You can develop a standard virtual server build that can be easily duplicated which will speed up server deployment.
5. You can deploy multiple operating system technologies on a single hardware platform (i.e. Windows Server 2003, Linux, Windows 2000, etc).
By taking advantage of server virtualization you can easily improve the efficiency of your Windows Data Center, as well as lower your cost of ownership.
Next week I will provide you with the top 5 best practices when implementing your Windows server consolidation strategy.
