As per reports, there has been an exponential rise in the number of businesses that are opting for virtualization. Virtualization owes its immense popularity to a number of benefits that include augmented IT scalability, productivity and flexibility; overall cost savings, especially with regard to operational and capital costs; a substantial decrease in downtime, along with better disaster recovery; faster provisioning of resources and applications; better responsiveness; better mobility of workload and enhanced availability of resources. Despite its effectiveness as an IT infrastructure solution, there are a few circumstances in which it is beneficial to not virtualize. This blog focuses on bringing to light those scenarios.
Virtualization
Prior to shedding light on those specific situations where the use of virtualization is not an option, let us discuss, in brief, virtualization as a technology, for the benefit of the uninitiated.
Virtualization is the technology that is used for the creation of a virtual version of storage devices, applications, computer hardware platforms, network resources etc. Virtualization creates multiple simulated environments or dedicated resources from a single hardware. It functions with the aid of a software that makes it possible to install multiple operating systems on a system.
Virtualization can be of many types. Its major types are network virtualization, storage virtualization, application virtualization, desktop virtualization and server virtualization.
To digress, servers are used by web hosting companies as well. The servers of web hosting companies are used to store the files of websites for the purpose of making websites accessible over the Internet. The most reliable web hosting service providers are often referred to as the “Best Website Hosting Company” or as the “Best Windows Hosting Company” or as the “Top Cloud Hosting Company”.
Situations when it’s best to not virtualize
There are certain situations where the best option for any business is to not opt for virtualization and rely on physical servers instead. These scenarios will be touched upon in this section of the blog.
The first of these situations involves the requirement for managing encryption keys. The management of keys can be accomplished easily on physical servers. Unfortunately, the same systems usually don’t work with virtual workloads. There are solutions for it but those solutions need to be looked into before the management of keys can be carried out securely and successfully on virtual machines.
Another situation where virtualization cannot be a solution is when certain licenses do not allow it. This happens in those cases where the licenses of certain applications prevent them from being run on virtual machines. Moreover, making a sudden move to virtualization without proper planning and without analysing the ins and outs of it, can lead to a complex situation for any business. If an unprepared business makes the move to virtualization then there is the probability of it encountering problems which might cause unnecessary downtime and challenges.
Virtualization is not at all an option for applications that have high I/O characteristics. Virtualization should not be used for distributed SMP applications which require high speed interconnects, databases, grid, apps that are graphics-intensive, applications that need hardware cards or dongles etc. It is important to mention here that desktop virtualization, which is one of the types of virtualization, should not be considered as an option if saving money is the primary motivation for opting for virtualization.
Another circumstance where virtualization will be futile is when there is a risk of having a virtualization loop. A business could encounter problems if it tries to virtualize its virtualization platform’s components. Let us understand it with the help of an example. If one’s virtualization platform and hypervisors depend on DNS (Domain Name System) and AD (Active Directory) and one’s DNS and AD servers are virtualized then the hypervisors will not start. This happens because the hypervisors keep waiting for the AD and the AD doesn’t start because it is waiting for the hypervisor. This vicious cycle needs to be avoided.
Virtualization might not work when high availability is built into an application. Older and mission-critical apps often have built-in high availability. This might not work when virtualized. Another downside is that a virtual machine which is running atop a hypervisor will not perform as swiftly as a physical machine that runs the same OS as well as applications directly.
Virtualization should be ruled out as a solution if time synchronization is critical. The reason for it is that virtual machines run their own clocks and their time will differ from that of the host server’s. If even minute differences are critical for an enterprise, then it is ideal to not opt for virtualization.
Last but not the least, if a business is not ready to bear or capable of bearing the cost that is involved in maintaining virtualization technology then it is better to not initiate the process.
Conclusion:
Without a doubt, virtualization has been the single most adopted technology for businesses in this day and age. It has its share of benefits that have made it so popular but there are certain situations where virtualization is not the way to go, as is evident from the situations that have been touched upon in this blog. It is not only important to know the benefits of virtualization but also to be aware of the challenges that one might encounter when opting for virtualization or the situations which render virtualization fruitless. Having an all-encompassing knowledge with regard to virtualization will help businesses to take an informed decision which aligns with their long-term business plans and is the most productive IT solution for them.
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