The NIH Data Center offers a Virtual Server service in the Windows environment using VM Ware software.
What is server virtualization?
Server virtualization allows multiple operating system instances to pull resources from a pool of physical servers, providing access to the memory and processors of that pool of servers. Each operating system runs in isolation, side-by-side on the same physical machine. VMWare software acts as the bridge between the virtual server’s operating system and the hardware, so that customers receive a service similar to a dedicated server, even though multiple “virtual systems” are running on the same server.
The benefits
Virtualization maximizes the efficient use of pooled resources, resulting in a lower cost solution over standard dedicated servers. Along with the cost savings, opting for virtualization brings you additional operational benefits, such as:
- Faster and More Flexible Provisioning: Virtualization expedites most steps of the server provisioning process. The flexibility makes implementing additional servers in the server pool easier.
- Decreased Downtime: Virtualization allows servers to remain accessible during maintenance or server failure.
- Higher Capacity Utilization: Virtualization provides customers the ability to easily increase capacity. Shared CPU and memory resources can be increased or decreased among virtual machines to allow for peak or sudden workloads.
Just as we do for your physical servers, we provide a high quality production environment for you under our Virtual Server service:
- Secure and Robust Systems: Virtualization maximizes uptime of business critical systems and offers effective business continuity.
- CIT’s standard hosting service: Customers using virtualization receive the same premium service that CIT offers its customers with physical servers.
Windows virtualization standard server offering
Our standard server offering includes 2 GB of memory and 50 GB of storage. In addition to the basic offering under CIT’s standard hosting service for physical servers, CIT can customize the virtual server to meet your requirements. Because virtual servers run on a pool of servers, the customer has access to more memory on request (up to 4 GB) with Windows 2003 Standard, and more storage (up to 500 GB).
The CIT hosting staff provides the same operating system support, patching, security, backup and monitoring as it does for the dedicated hardware solution. The initial offering does not include support for virtual servers that must reside behind application firewalls or load balancers, but we plan to include that support in the future.
The virtualized Windows environment resides on a pool of servers running under VMWare ESX software. The initial pool configuration consists of 4 servers, each with 4 dual core 3.6 GHz processors and 32 GB of memory, connected to a 10 TB SAN that can be expanded to 35 TB.
More information
If you are interested in the Virtual Server service, please contact the NIH Help Desk by phone at 301-496-HELP (301-496-4357), 866-319-4357 (toll free), or 301-496-8294 (TTY).
