IT organizations must perform a nearly impossible juggling act. Deliver more services at less cost. Increase performance yet manage fewer systems. Buy the right server for the job yet adapt to change at a moment’s notice. x64 servers and HP BladeTM modular systems powered by Intel ItaniumTM processors let businesses run the HP-UXTM Operating System (OS), Linux or Windows today, and change direction tomorrow.
 
But consolidate multiple applications and operating systems onto the same server? It’s an innovative way to do more with less, and it’s straightforward with virtualization technologies from HP and its partners.
 

Figure 1 - Consolidation through virtualization allows different applications to run in secure, isolated environments on a single-server platform—like HP x64 servers

Doing more with less
Almost every enterprise depends on the IT organization to support the applications that make it run. Yet today, most businesses are cutting costs in order to deliver products and services more cost-effectively and efficiently than the competition. IT organizations are now pressured to do the same, and must cut cost and complexity while delivering highly available, business-critical applications that perform at lightning speed.
 
These demands translate into a unique set of challenges:
 
• Reduce capital expenses by using a smaller number of larger, more powerful and cost-effective servers
 
• Provide for continued operations by distributing applications geographically
 
• Reduce operating expenses by managing a smaller number of servers and by supporting a small, core set of enterprise operating systems
 
• Increase server utilization and reduce power and cooling costs by deploying multiple applications onto a single server, sharing resources, and reducing the number of wasted CPU cycles
 
• Optimize flexibility and protect investments by choosing servers that can be used to support one application and operating system today and support a different combination tomorrow
 
• Raise availability levels with local replication and reliable servers equipped with redundant components

Virtualization and consolidation
In the 1990s, a key strategy in designing Internet architectures was to decompose applications into separate components. Each component was replicated for availability, hosted in its own security domain (usually a dedicated server), and tuned for optimal performance. This resulted in a large number of 1RU and larger servers deployed across datacenter environments, each contributing to inefficiency.
 
• Each server was sized to handle the maximum expected workload, leaving its CPU (and other resources) underutilized most of the time.
 
• Each 1U server needed infrastructure, including power supplies and cooling fans, resulting in higher initial capital costs and ongoing operational costs than with larger servers offering better economies of scale.
 
• Each server contributed to the number of systems to maintain, licenses to track, and operating system instances to support.

Virtualization and consolidation techniques have evolved since the 1990s to the point where today they can be used together to support Internet architectures that are logically decomposed but which physically share the same infrastructure. This helps IT organizations achieve the same security, availability, and performance benefits of decomposed architectures while realizing a whole new level of efficiency. Virtualization and consolidation are two key tools that help IT organizations do more with less.

Consolidation
Consolidation is the strategy of moving multiple applications from separate servers onto fewer shared servers. This technique is used by IT organizations wishing to leverage the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of larger, more powerful servers.

In some cases, multiple applications can be consolidated onto a single application instance. For example, one database management system can support different applications through a set of disjoint tablespaces. A Web server’s virtual hosting capability enables it to support multiple sites. In many cases, however, each application targeted to share a single server requires its own application instance. For example, separate Web server instances are needed to support development, staging, and production Web sites so that developers can change the environment without affecting the business application.

Virtualization and partitioning
Consolidation is the goal, but virtualization and partitioning are the means by which multiple applications or application instances can share a platform and resources without interfering with each other. For example, virtualization enables multiple Apache Web server instances on the same server to have a unique httpd.conf configuration file, each in a separate, virtualized environment.

Virtualization enables applications to access the resources they are authorized to use — and not exceed the boundaries of their security domain. In addition, virtualization lets IT organizations manage resources like CPU, memory, and network bandwidth for greater utilization, and dynamically adjust resource allocation. This helps give IT organizations the flexibility they need to respond quickly to rapidly changing workloads.

Virtualization begins with a single environment and creates the illusion of multiple ones. It can take place at several levels, but regardless of level the effect is that the application or the guest operating system itself has the illusion that it ‘owns’ its environment. Four different virtualization techniques are used in products from HP and its partners today:
 
• Hardware partitioning creates multiple, secure, electrically-isolated domains on a single server platform. HP’s Dynamic System Domains technology is available on mid-range and high-end servers.
 
• Virtual machine software creates the illusion that each operating system has its own dedicated hardware — despite the fact that each operating system only ‘owns’ a part of the hardware platform. Virtual machine technologies include the open source Xen, Microsoft Virtual Server, and VMware GSX Server (with the next release named VMware Server). VMware Virtual Infrastructure, in which ESX Server is the key component, is the virtual machine technology highlighted in this brief.
 
• Containers partition a single operating system instance to give each application the illusion that it has its own environment and its own dedicated set of resources. BSD Jails is one example of partitioning technology, and HP-UXTM Containers is the technology highlighted in this brief.

• Application virtualization refers to the fact that many applications support virtualized environments themselves. For example, most Web servers can host multiple virtual sites concurrently, each with their own root and resources such as Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts. JavaTM System Web server, for example, supports multiple virtual Web sites.

Figure 2 - Virtualization and partitioning technologies (gray) fit between layers of the hardware and software stack (green), giving the illusion of a dedicated environment to the layer above

Virtualizing the datacenter
HP continues to develop technologies to help IT organizations reduce cost and complexity by enabling resources to be centrally managed as a single, flexible, dynamically allocated pool. This strategy helps datacenters reduce the number of systems to manage, increase utilization, and be more cost effective. With virtualization, IT organizations can leverage the economies of scale of powerful, reliable servers, storage, and networking technologies, even for the smallest applications. And it helps IT organizations more easily align with corporate business objectiveswhile keeping up with the rapid pace of change.
 
Virtualizing layer by layer
HP helps to virtualize resources at each layer in the IT infrastrucxture, helping organizations increase reliability, resource utilization, flexibility, and security. HP’s virtualization strategy extends to three key infrastructure layers: storage, servers, and the network.
 
• Many HP Storage WorksTM storage products support a centrally located and managed pool of storage that can be securely partitioned and allocated to servers and applications on demand.
 
• For years, HP’s high-end servers have supported Dynamic System Domains partitioning technology that lets IT organizations treat servers as a single pool of resources that can be allocated to a set of secure, electrically isolated domains.
 
• The HP Secure Application Switch virtualizes the network, enabling IT organizations to allocate resources, including hardware accelerated TCP termination and re-assembly, packet filtering, load balancing, and SSL encryption to multiple, securely isolated virtual switches in order to support virtualized service switching.
 
Leading-edge technologies for everyone HP has a long held philosophy of developing leading-edge technologies for its high-end products and moving them to mid-range and entry-level products over time.

Nowhere is this philosophy more evident than in HP’s server virtualization technologies. HP first offered Dynamic System Domains in high-end servers, and now offers similar technologies in many mid-range systems. Today, HP-UX Containers let multiple virtual HP-UX environments run on the same server, bringing high-end partitioning technologies to single processor servers and across the range of HP platforms, from potent Itanium® processor-based systems to x64 servers with Intel Itanium or Intel® Xeon® Processors.