What is Virtual Infrastructure?

A virtual infrastructure is a collection of software-defined components that make up an enterprise IT environment. It is hosted on another physical infrastructure and meant to be distributed as a service as in cloud computing’s infrastructure as a service (Iaas) delivery model. A virtual infrastructure allows you to utilize the IT capabilities of physical resources as software that can be used across multiple platforms.

By decoupling physical hardware from an operating system, a virtual infrastructure can help organizations achieve greater IT resource utilization, flexibility, scalability, and cost savings. These resources are shared across multiple virtual machines (VMs) and applications for maximum efficiency, creating a virtual infrastructure.

Purpose of Virtual Infrastructure

The main purpose of virtual infrastructure is to provide enterprise-level technology to organizations or small businesses that cannot afford the large capital required to pay for the hardware, software licenses, setup, and continual maintenance of an actual data center infrastructure. This technology utilizes the physical server resources to host logical or virtual servers and networking hardware involving virtualization.

Your business needs are the driving force behind dynamically mapping the physical resources of your infrastructure to applications – even as those needs evolve and change. This resource optimization drives greater flexibility in the organization and results in lower capital and operational costs.

Physical vs. Virtual Infrastructure

To properly understand virtual infrastructure, let’s discuss some differences between physical and virtual infrastructure. Physical infrastructure encompasses physical servers, in which software runs on the hardware.

The hardware includes memory, network cards and chips, processing, and storage resources. Meanwhile, virtual infrastructure uses physical infrastructure, but instead of installing an operating system, you install a hypervisor. A hypervisor is a special kind of software that runs virtual machines. It can be installed directly into the hardware or on the operating system.

With virtual machines, you can have more than one running on a single physical device. Instead of needing ten physical servers, you can have one physical server with a hypervisor running ten virtual servers, all using the hardware simultaneously. A virtual infrastructure can also run applications just like the physical servers. You can install different operating systems on the virtual machines than on the operating systems on which the hypervisor is installed.

In an enterprise setting, virtual infrastructure can mean you have numerous servers and physical resources in a server room or a data center to store the data for your business.

Components of Virtual Infrastructure

By separating physical hardware from operating systems, virtualization can provision compute, memory, storage, and networking resources across multiple virtual machines (VMs) for greater application performance, increased cost savings, and easier management.

Despite having variances in design and functionality, a virtual infrastructure consists of four key components:

Virtualized Compute

This component offers the same capabilities and functionalities as the physical servers but with the ability to be more efficient. In traditional infrastructure, servers were often underutilized. But many operating systems and operations can run on a single physical server through virtualization. Virtual compute also makes newer technologies like cloud computing and containers possible.

Virtualized Storage

This component allows the organization to be free from the constraints and limitations of hardware by combining pools of physical storage capacity into a single, more manageable repository. Organizations are able to bolster their storage resources and gain more flexibility in provisioning them to virtual machines by connecting storage arrays to multiple servers using a storage area network.

Virtualized Network and Security

This component decouples networking services from the underlying hardware and allows users to access network resources from a centralized management system. Key security features ensure a protected environment for virtual machines, including restricted access, virtual machine isolation, and user provisioning measures.

Management Solution

This component provides a user-friendly console for configuring, managing, and provisioning virtualized IT infrastructure as well as automating processes. A management solution allows IT teams to migrate virtual machines from one physical server to another without delays or downtime while enabling high availability for applications running in virtual machines, disaster recovery, and backup administration.

Virtual machines are also easily portable so you can move them between servers without any problem.

How Virtual Infrastructure Works

Virtual infrastructure is a technology that allows the creation of multiple virtual environments on a single physical server or cluster of servers. These virtual environments are known as virtual machines, which can each run their own operating system, applications, and other software.

To create virtual machines, virtual infrastructure uses virtualization, which separates the physical hardware of a server from its operating system and other software. This separation is accomplished through a software layer known as a hypervisor, which sits between the physical hardware and the virtual machines.

When a virtual machine is created, it is assigned a portion of the server’s physical resources, such as CPU, memory, and storage. The hypervisor then manages the allocation and utilization of these resources, ensuring that each virtual machine has the necessary resources to operate efficiently.

Virtual infrastructure offers many benefits over traditional physical infrastructure. One of the main advantages is increased flexibility and scalability. Because virtual machines are created and managed independently of physical hardware, they can be easily moved or replicated to other servers or data centers. This makes it much easier to scale resources up or down based on demand without purchasing and installing additional physical hardware.

Another advantage of virtual infrastructure is improved efficiency. By consolidating multiple virtual machines onto a single physical server, organizations can reduce their hardware and energy consumption, resulting in cost savings and reduced environmental impact.

However, virtual infrastructure also poses some challenges and drawbacks. One common challenge is the need for specialized skills and knowledge to manage and maintain virtual environments. Additionally, virtualization can introduce additional security risks, as virtual machines can be accessed and compromised through the hypervisor layer.

To optimize the use of virtual infrastructure, it is essential to follow best practices for implementation and management. This may include selecting the right virtualization technology for your needs, planning for scalability and disaster recovery, and ensuring security and compliance.

In conclusion, virtual infrastructure is a powerful technology that benefits modern businesses and organizations. By understanding how virtual infrastructure works and how to optimize its use, organizations can take advantage of this technology to improve efficiency, scalability, and flexibility.

Benefits of Virtual Infrastructure

The benefits of virtual infrastructure touch every aspect of an IT infrastructure, from storage and server systems to networking tools. Here are some key benefits of a virtual infrastructure.

Scalability

A virtual infrastructure allows provisioning as many or as few logical servers as required, and users only pay for what they use. They also allow organizations to react quickly to changing customer demands and market trends by ramping up CPU utilization or scaling back accordingly.

Flexible

A virtual infrastructure allows for multiple server and networking configurations compared to a hardwired physical infrastructure, requiring more capital and effort to change.

Increased Productivity

It also allows faster provisioning of applications and resources and allows IT teams to respond more quickly to employee demands for new tools and technologies.

The result is increased productivity, efficiency, and agility for IT teams, an enhanced employee experience, and increased talent retention rates without hardware procurement delays.

Secure

It allows more security to be layered on top of whatever security is already present in the virtual infrastructure because all traffic to the virtual infrastructure goes through the physical infrastructure.

Cost Savings

By consolidating servers, virtualization reduces capital and operating costs associated with variables such as electrical power, physical security, and hosting ad server development.

Load Balancing and Simplified Server Management

It allows software-based servers to share workloads easily and distribute them properly, so no single local is taxed more than the others. Simplified server management ensures that IT teams can spin up or down virtual machines when required and re-provision resources based on real-time needs.

Challenges of Virtual Infrastructure

While virtual infrastructure offers many benefits, it also presents several challenges that organizations must be aware of and prepared to address.

Security & Performance

One of the main challenges of virtual infrastructure is security. Because multiple virtual machines share the same physical hardware and hypervisor layer, there is a risk that a security breach in one virtual machine could potentially affect others on the same server. This can be especially concerning for organizations that handle sensitive data, such as financial or healthcare information.

Another challenge of virtual infrastructure is performance. While virtualization technology has improved dramatically in recent years, a slight overhead is still associated with running applications on virtual machines. This can result in reduced performance compared to running applications on physical hardware, especially for resource-intensive applications such as high-performance computing or data analysis.

Management & Cost

Additionally, managing virtual infrastructure can be complex and require specialized skills and knowledge. Virtualization technology involves several layers of software, each with its own configuration and management requirements. This can make it challenging for IT staff to monitor and manage virtual environments effectively, especially in large-scale deployments.

Another challenge of virtual infrastructure is cost. While virtualization can help reduce hardware and energy costs, an upfront investment is still required for purchasing and deploying the necessary hardware and software. Additionally, virtualization can increase software licensing costs, as each virtual machine typically requires its own license for operating systems and other software.

To address these challenges, organizations need to follow best practices for implementing and managing virtual infrastructure. This may include conducting regular security audits and implementing robust access controls, monitoring performance metrics and tuning virtual machines for optimal performance, investing in staff training and certification programs, and carefully managing software licensing costs to avoid over-licensing.

In conclusion, virtual infrastructure presents several challenges that organizations must be prepared to address, including security, performance, complexity, and cost. By understanding these challenges and following best practices for implementation and management, organizations can optimize the use of virtual infrastructure and take advantage of its many benefits.

Best Practices for Implementing Virtual Infrastructure

Implementing virtual infrastructure can be a complex process. However, by following best practices, organizations can ensure successful deployment and maximize the benefits of this technology.

To ensure the successful deployment and optimization of virtual infrastructure, it is essential to follow best practices that can help minimize risks and maximize the benefits of this technology. Here are some of the best practices for implementing virtual infrastructure:

• Define clear objectives: It is important to define clear objectives and requirements before implementing virtual infrastructure. This may include assessing the organization’s current infrastructure, identifying the business needs, and defining the scope and goals of the virtual infrastructure deployment.
• Choose the right virtualization technology: There are several virtualization technologies available, including hypervisors from vendors such as VMware, Microsoft, and Citrix. Choosing the right virtualization technology that aligns with the organization’s objectives and requirements is important.
• Plan for scalability and disaster recovery: Virtual infrastructure can be easily scaled up or down based on demand, but planning for scalability in advance is important. This may include defining a clear roadmap for expansion, implementing redundancy and failover mechanisms, and ensuring backup and recovery procedures are in place.
• Implement security controls: Virtual infrastructure can introduce additional security risks, so it is essential to implement robust security controls to protect against threats. This may include implementing access controls, regularly patching and updating software, and monitoring virtual environments for potential vulnerabilities.
• Optimize performance: Virtual machines can experience performance issues due to overhead associated with virtualization. To optimize performance, it is vital to monitor and tune virtual machines for optimal performance regularly.
• Train staff: Managing virtual infrastructure requires specialized skills and knowledge, so investing in staff training and certification programs is essential to ensure that IT staff are equipped with the necessary skills to manage and maintain virtual environments effectively.
• Carefully manage software licensing: Virtual machines typically require their own licenses for operating systems and other software, which can result in increased licensing costs. It is important to manage software licensing to avoid over-licensing and unnecessary costs carefully.

Implementing virtual infrastructure requires careful planning and execution. However, by following best practices, organizations can ensure successful deployment and maximize the benefits of this technology.

Key best practices include selecting the appropriate virtualization technology, planning for scalability and disaster recovery, ensuring security, investing in staff training and certification, and carefully managing software licensing costs.