Server Management Consulting and Service

Server proliferation wreaks havoc on IT budgets and management resources. Server consolidation via a virtual infrastructure offers lower total cost of ownership of servers and faster return on investment, more efficient utilization of servers, simplified operations, increased network availability, and easier manageability. Virtual server technology allows IT organizations to run multiple virtual servers on a single physical machine. A virtual server runs operating systems and applications just as though they were running on dedicated physical servers. Common usage scenarios for virtual servers include resource consolidation, low-cost platforms for line-of-business legacy applications based on outdated operating systems, and affordable isolation of software development or pilot testing environments from production systems.

Virtual server products such as VMware ESX Server and vSphere Server, Windows Hyper-V, and Citrix XenServer give businesses the benefits of server segmentation and secure isolation but without the expense and management headaches associated with supporting a large number of physical servers.

A powerful element of virtual server technology is that it provides a complete virtual abstraction of the physical components of a server, such as disk and network subsystems, creating a single universal operating system configuration, regardless of the underlying physical server hardware. This makes it easy to move a virtual server to new server hardware without any configuration changes to the underlying environment of the virtual servers. This solves the vexing problems of upgrading physical servers.

Virtual server technology allows better utilization of server processors and memory by allowing multiple virtual servers to share a single physical server. Dedicated and powerful physical servers are often deployed for low-overhead applications, such as domain controllers, DNS servers, web servers, or eCommerce interfaces. For these applications, CPU and memory utilization is minimal. By combining multiple servers of these types under a single physical server, utilization of the processor and memory is more in line with the power available on commodity server platforms.

Provisioning and deployment of new servers under a virtual infrastructure is dramatically simplified due to the standard environment created for a virtual server by the virtual host software. New servers can often be deployed in minutes instead of hours. Valuable IT expertise can be focused on higher value tasks rather than routine setup and configuration procedures.

Virtual server technology allows complete remote management and control of all servers. Remote console screen access through a web browser allows any operation that could be performed on a local physical console to be performed remotely. With CD-ROM emulation, even operating system installation and upgrades are a breeze. Wayward virtual servers can easily be reset or power cycled with just a few clicks.

The flexibility of quickly moving virtual servers between physical servers allows for scalability and expansion of server infrastructure to match application demands. As the need for application computing power increases, additional virtual host servers can be deployed easily, and existing virtual servers can be load balanced across the array of physical servers.

How Progent Can Help You Simplify Server Management with Virtual Server Technology
Progent's IT management consultants offer expertise with key virtual server platforms and offer Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V support, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 consulting, VMware ESX Server and vSphere Server help, and Citrix XenServer virtualization support. Progent's experts can show you how to design your network to take full advantage of virtual server technology, help you install and configure virtual servers to maximize performance, dependability and manageability while lowering costs, propose and test business recovery plans that minimize downtime in case of catastrophic disruption of your network, and provide ongoing support, troubleshooting, and consulting services as your business grows and technology evolves.

How to Get Help with Virtual Servers
To get immediate help selecting, deploying and managing virtual server solutions, call Progent at 800-993-9400 or send email to email server-management-help@progent.com.