Virtualization Solutions for Dedicated Servers

This week, you may want to consider and review solutions that other companies are doing to help consolidate their dedicated servers with virtualization.

On the storage side, SeverWatch is reporting that Virtualization Technologies for Storage Get Real:

The technological issue of storage backup being a big problem once virtual machines are up and running. The most effective way to backup the virtual machines is do so in a way that doesn't involve the box itself being backed up. The easiest and most common way to handle this is to snapshot the virtual machine's image and backup.

Here I agree that snapshots are the easiest way to backup your virtual machine.  But where do you store those images?  CommVault offers a $900/TB license which will enable you to backup your data to the cloud, but what about smaller solutions?

Here you may want to consider CTERA, the "Coolest Cloud Storage Vendor". CTERA offers a plug-in computer that connects to the internet that enables you to backup your data to off-site storage via Rackspace Cloud Files.  A somewhat more cost effective solution especially if you have a small business or home office.

Eventually your business will grow to a point where expansion becomes nearly impossible and you need to look for alternatives.  Take the case where Attorney Nicholas Barrett consolidated twelve Windows 2003 servers into one using dedicated server.  Not only is he saving money, space and energy with virtualization, he has added capacity to grow his business. His solution is to run Citrix (NASDAQ:CTXS) XEN on a single IBM Blade Center S Chassis. To protect his twelve virtual servers, he uses StorageCraft ShadowProtect software to image servers for disaster backup and recovery.

With virtualization, many of the products used to protect your dedicated server are now scaling to provide a solution for your entire infrastructure.  The good news is that there are affordable solutions for both small companies and large enterprises.