Today, businesses and people are concerned about the economy and the environment. This spurs the need to save money and also a desire to look at how we impact Mother Earth. This two fold focus is something that many deal with on a daily basis. Thankfully, when it comes to your  server room and desktop needs there is an answer. Virtualization.

Virtualization, or the process of running one computer system on top of another, is now a mature technology that should be seriously considered when evaluating both your server and desktop needs. Through a vendor provided software, you are given the ability to install multiple copies of operating systems on a single physical machine. Think, one Dell PowerEdge server could now hold two, three or more virtual machines. Your HP TouchSmart now runs both Windows XP and Windows 7 ,as well as Linux. Good bye to extra toxins and carbon emissions caused by running and disposing of physical hardware. Farewell server room cluster and mess. Adios three  machines at one desk.

These servers act just as a new physical server would. They have their own names, IP addresses, each have their own location for use as a "hard drive", and will show up on your network as new resources; provided you gave them use of a network card on the host server. All of these items and more are configurable per virtual server to allow fine control. This can also be used in a desktop environment and suddenly you have a laptop that has Windows and Linux installed.

Large vendors like VMWare and Microsoft have offerings for both the server and desktop environment. Although VMWare is my hands down winner, I've operated in both environments and they are both easy to use, reliable, and cost effective. Additionally, virtualization helps you get Green through the reduction of the physical number of machines you need; so less electricity, cooling, and toxins when it goes to the dump.

You many not consider that your laptop adds to global warming or that the six year old server would contribute to toxic waste, but they do. Inside these tiny technologies are materials and substances that are corrosive and posionous. There is a very good reason why many cities have made dumping computer materials illegal.

There are limitiations to virtualization of course. Each virtual machine shares the physical components of the host server and must therefore compete and queue accordingly. Having heavy traffic applications hosted with lower traffic applications is a consideration to ensure proper load balancing. Another drawback is that not all applications work well in a virtual world, though that continues to improve. Finally, if your host machine fails, it is possible to lose access to all the virtual machines until the host returns.

The benefits of scaling your physical machines into virutal outweigh the negatives in large implementations, hands down. I've seen datacenter cost reductions in the millions by switching form a physical to a virtual hosting environment. I've also seen solutions that end up being no gain, or a loss, after software and license costs. The point being, you must entertain the thought that you can create a highly available, scalable, and efficient infrastructure through virtualization. Once you believe in that possibility, then ensure it is part of your research before you make your next hardware purchase.