VIRTUALIZATION & CLOUD ARCHITECTURE

 The virtualization of infrastructure servers, network, storage and desktops is a technology revolution and serves as the foundation for the cloud, public and private alike.

However, cloud architecture does not stop with virtualization. The key components that define the cloud are efficiency, self-service and automation. To realize the power of a truly dynamic, service based cloud architecture management, provisioning and portal services must be layered on top of the virtualization that many organizations are implementing today.

Virtualization and cloud enable organizations to more effectively leverage, scale and allocate their server, storage, network and computing resources while providing IT as a service model to their organization.

  • Increase Server Utilization and enable server consolidation
  • Scale rapidly, provision new resources, services and applications in minutes
  • Gain Business Continuity and High Availability
  • Decrease hardware costs by leveraging software
  • Provide user self-service model to employees
  • Secure and manage enterprise desktops
  • Provide robust consolidated storage that is flexible, dynamic and highly available

ASON provides complete turnkey solutions for all your virtual network design and cloud infrastructure project needs.  Our team of certified seasoned professionals can assist you in the design, testing, implementation, backup, replication, disaster recovery and full scale migrations in your environment.

We provide on-site assessments, workshops and training to take you through the process of migrating to a virtualized environment that will allow your organization to quickly capitalize on all the benefits of this transforming technology.

 

Server Virtualization

Server Virtualization is the foundation of the cloud, allowing one physical server to be split into many virtual servers. These virtual server operating systems are separated from the hardware they reside on and have the ability to be managed separately. The true power of this comes from the abstraction of software from hardware. Now our resources are truly portable. Server software and application resources are independent, making true High Availability a reality. Commodity Hardware can be leveraged to handle enterprise workloads that were unthinkable in the past for many organizations. Virtualization of servers also alleviates customer power, cooling and space requirements. It also increases time between hardware refresh cycles, speeds deployment and eases configuration.  Virtualization allows you to reduce administration burden, provision new services rapidly, and build a cloud data-center.

 

Automation and Management

The key to cloud architecture is automating processes, allowing systems to self-heal and build an easy to manage front end. This allows IT to proactively focus on innovation and improving productivity. This management layer provides the ability to build intelligence to the environment. Critical tasks such as provisioning new resources and troubleshooting can be automated. Dashboard technologies further simplify the management process allowing business units to provision and leverage their own resources.

 

Desktop and Application Virtualization

Desktop and Application Virtualization abstract desktop operating systems, application and user experience from hardware much the same way that server virtualization separates enterprise workload from hardware. By separating these services, users are freed from their desk. Enterprise desktops and applications can now be accessed anywhere from any device at any time. Enterprise resources are presented to users; this inherently adds a layer of security by not allowing data on end user devices. The access is also simple, promoting a self-service desktop and application delivery model. IT support is greatly reduced as endpoint support is no longer required. Additionally, IT resources are centralized in the data-center further easing administrative burden.

 

Virtual Network Design, Optimization, and Storage Virtualization

Tying LUNs to physical disks and RAID groups is no different than traditional DAS, just over a different protocol. By leveraging the efficiency gained from virtualization, many storage solutions today are also driven by software rather than hardware. Virtualizing storage creates powerful capabilities such as production level deduplication and high performance double parity. It also enables systems to leverage all spindles for IOPS, not just defined LUN disks.

Another advantage is storage consolidation. In the past we needed different hardware and management interfaces for different storage solutions. Backup, NAS, and SAN tiers, all had different requirements. This created a large amount of technologies and systems to manage, and required multiple-skill sets. Virtualized storage systems today allow for consolidation. NAS, SAN, Backup and DR can be consolidated to one system on a single platform. Multiple protocols can also be supported on a single system, NFS, CIFS iSCSI, FC and FCoE can run together greatly reducing the management burden. Virtualized storage also consolidates backup, DR and Business Continuity by integrating with vSphere, Oracle, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, Microsoft SharePoint and VSS.

 

Contact ASON today 877-305-2766 to find out more about our solutions to evaluate your infrastructure to meet the needs of your company.