In his article, Mak King presents the benefits of using VMware as a virtualization solution in order to create a better development environment that proves to be ecologically greener if the process is taken beyond server consolidation.
Read: Beyond Consolidation: Building a Better Development Environment with VMware
Mak describes how he transformed their lab’s systems configuration by introducing VMware and resulting in:
- The lab is much easier to manage. Going from 13 disparate devices to 3 identical devices has made it much simpler and easier. Getting rid of KVMs, LCDs, small UPSs and all the cables that go along with them has allowed me to shrink the space used in the lab by 85%.
- Flexibility is greatly enhanced. For example, we were able to determine the optimum amount of resources (both RAM and number of processors) for particular database queries by adjusting the number of resources allocated to a VM, and repeating test jobs until we hit a point of diminishing return. Doing that with physical hardware would have been a nightmare not only with hardware cost but also with time.
- Network throughput has increased. Previously, the network throughput of each device was limited to the number of nic ports it contained - in most cases just a single one. Now that each ESX host contains multiple nics, each with several ports, these are teamed for doubling the available bandwidth, as well as providing network redundancy in case of nic failure. Due to this configuration, I have also seen a reduction in the time it takes for backups.
- The use of HA, DRS and VMotion has greatly improved our redundancy and uptime.
