Variations on a virtualization theme

Which strategy is right for your data center: consolidation, clusters or grids?

To virtualize or not to virtualize -- that is no longer the question when it comes to deploying Linux in the data center. Today, the question is which virtualization approach to take.

One option is to junk dozens, or hundreds, of stand-alone server boxes and consolidate virtualized Linux server images onto a few large hosts. Another is to buy hundreds of new Linux machines and tie them together as a single, virtual system via clustering or grid technology.

"Linux is the strongest example of an operating system that runs on almost any hardware you can think of, and almost any deployment scenario you can think of," says Jean Bozman, research vice president with IDC's Enterprise Server Group. "The style of a virtualized Linux deployment you use depends who you are and what problems you're trying to solve. Clusters, grids, virtualized servers are all possible from the basic building blocks of Linux."

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To virtualize or not to virtualize -- that is no longer the question when it comes to deploying Linux in the data center. Today, the question is which virtualization approach to take.

One option is to junk dozens, or hundreds, of stand-alone server boxes and consolidate virtualized Linux server images onto a few large hosts. Another is to buy hundreds of new Linux machines and tie them together as a single, virtual system via clustering or grid technology.

"Linux is the strongest example of an operating system that runs on almost any hardware you can think of, and almost any deployment scenario you can think of," says Jean Bozman, research vice president with IDC's Enterprise Server Group. "The style of a virtualized Linux deployment you use depends who you are and what problems you're trying to solve. Clusters, grids, virtualized servers are all possible from the basic building blocks of Linux."

Scale up with consolidation

The trendy data-center virtualization scheme among Linux users is server consolidation, which aims to address a problem that has roots in the economic downturn of 2001 to 2003, when cash-strapped enterprises started favoring smaller servers over larger ones, Bozman says.

"Over that time, there was a proliferation of volume servers, the likes of which has never been seen," he says. Before 2001, Linux server shipments were around 3 million to 4 million units per year. Now they top 7 million. For customers who built out data centers using hundreds of machines, there is now a push to pare down the amount of "pizza box" hardware.

"Customers who run a data center with 50 or 100 physical servers may need 500 or 1,000 of those machines someday," says Kevin Lehay, director of virtualization at IBM. "How do you manage all of that environment? That's where the scale-up environment takes advantage of that."