CAIRO, Egypt, 5th January, 2016: In many aspects of life,
false perceptions and myths prevent a particular course of action being taken,
often to the detriment of the person or organisation involved. The problem with
a false perception is with how that course of action ends – particularly if it
ends badly – when all the information was unclear or incorrect at the start.
Alexey Strygin, Presales Director, Emerging Markets and
LATAM at Veeam Software
says that Virtualisation is one such area that requires its many myths to be
debunked, particularly when it comes to virtualising business-critical
applications – there is an assumed layer of complexity that some enterprises
must overcome to reap the rewards to ensure constant access to essential
services. In itself, virtualisation is on an upward trend in Egypt, and is the
driving force behind ensuring constant availability to data and applications.
Yet, when business-critical applications are not virtualised, organisations in
the country cannot be always-on – they miss out on lower costs, improved
reliability and availability, as well as increased business agility.
What are the
supposed complexities involved, and are they true? Alexey has outlined the
areas that the IT department does, and doesn’t, need to be concerned about when
it comes to business-critical application virtualisation.
Myth 1 – Applications perform better on physical systems
A lot of enterprise
application owners will think virtualised systems cannot deliver the level of
performance they get from physical servers. Once upon a time, the rationale
underpinning this myth was undoubtedly true. That is no longer the case. It is
now possible to achieve the same levels at least – and with the right tools and
configuration – much better performance on Virtual Machines (VMs) than in
physical systems. These VMs also enable businesses to ensure their data is
always available. There is also the added advantage that a VM gives instant
scalability to meet peaks in demand and changing business needs. If one can get
better performance from a VM and instant scalability to meet peaks in demand
and ensure the business is always-on, it makes sense to virtualise as many
applications as possible.
Myth 2 – Virtualisation (or being always-on) will cost
too much
Fundamentally
this is false both from the point of view of licensing costs and the cost of
running servers. These two main cost considerations can both be reduced by
having a fully-virtualised system. The initial investment required for
operating new servers will be offset by the lower costs associated with lower
power and cooling costs. Whilst simultaneously, licence costs are reduced
because some vendors will offer licencing breaks for virtualised environments.
Myth 3 – VMs can’t be backed up properly
Application
owners, particularly those responsible for business-critical applications, have
to meet tough SLAs, and they need to know they can rely on backup and recovery
systems to keep their businesses always-on and their data available at all
times. It is a myth that VMs can’t be backed up properly. In fact, modern
backup and recovery solutions can achieve RPOs and RTOs of fewer than 15
minutes for any application, whether it’s virtualised or not. Virtualised
systems actually offer much faster recovery for business-critical applications
than physical systems.
Myth 4 – Virtualisation isn’t safe for business critical
applications
The fact is
that business critical applications will benefit most from virtualisation. The
modern data centre is anchored on key characteristics of the modern data
centre: today they are highly virtualised, companies are investing in modern
storage systems and there is a definite cloud strategy. This modern data centre
becomes the platform to run critical applications to the highest pedigree. The
reality is that if organisations want it all, they need a data centre that can
meet the needs of critical applications and the expectations of company today.
This can only be done when additional capabilities that come from
virtualisation are in place.
Whether
immediate scalability is needed, availability off-site or being able to verify
that critical applications are recoverable and ready to go for the next
critical change; virtualisation is the common thread to meet those needs. So
much so, that virtualisation can open up opportunities that weren’t even possible
just a few years ago.
Myth 5 – If one application is compromised it puts every
application at risk
It is a myth
that if one application is compromised it puts every application at risk. Such
fears are unfounded because isolation and segregation are fundamental
principles of virtualisation, so these types of environments have had
protection from cross-infection built into them since their inception. Modern
hypervisors also have a very small – and very hard – attack surface, which
makes it extremely difficult to compromise multiple VMs.
Advances in
network virtualisation have also made it possible to deploy an entire virtual
network, with firewalls, routers and switches, which you can control and secure
just as you would a physical network.
It’s now possible
to achieve always-on status without adding cost and complexity to IT
infrastructures or putting business-critical applications at risk. Today enterprises
can reduce data centre expenses and improve the performance and availability of
the applications that really make a difference to business; helping increase
business agility and productivity while also lowering costs.
These issues
lie at the heart of the always-on business, and with the right tools in place, enterprises
in Egypt no longer need to ask if they can afford to virtualise
business-critical applications, but rather, if they can afford not to.