Virtual servers provide benefits to schools

Virtual servers provide benefits to schools, by Scott Reeder

 The virtual server explosion that has taken place the last several years has found its way into our school IT services and for good reason. Before virtualization, the mentality of deploying solutions on Intel (x86) was a one to one model. That being for every server application, software stack or required service, one physical server was deployed. In some school environments this led to massive server sprawl. This created very complex IT environments from a hardware, services and management standpoint. Closet and classroom servers became the standard and created additional management points for staff to maintain in both hardware and software.

Virtualization to the rescue! The trend started several years ago with virtual software solutions being offered by VMWare, Microsoft, RedHat, Citrix to name a few. These software products created an environment where multiple Operating System instances could coexist and share resources on a single hardware box. In the early days of virtualization it was most often deployed in development and test environments as the technology was new and un-proven. Software developers and IT personnel quickly realized the value of the virtualized infrastructure and it led to a computing revolution in the enterprise server market. The days of dedicated server hardware were ending and the onrush of virtualized servers had begun.

Inside the realms of education, server virtualization has taken some time to accelerate from an adoption standpoint. Long IT lifecycles, proprietary education workloads, limited IT staff and the risk adverseness of education institutions contributed to the slower growth than that seen the private sector IT organizations. In 2010, the trend started to change and the increase in mainstream virtualized servers within education grew substantially. Cost saving pressures, multiple software choices, widespread adoption and solution stability were key to the growth in education deployments for virtualized servers.

In my travels during the past year, I have seen a much more aggressive approach by school IT administrators to utilize virtualized servers as a mainstream solution. It is often stated in my conversations with schools and districts throughout the US that all new deployed servers will be virtualized unless proven not to work in a virtual environment. This has led to many school infrastructures targeting a 80-90% virtual environment for teaching and learning platforms. With the education trend now into the virtual world, and more feature packed virtual server solutions, 2011 should bring increased momentum for virtualized servers in education institutions. There are still some education specific challenges that IT administrators will face when deploying virtual infrastructures, but the goal of getting well over 50% of deployed servers virtualized is now within reach of many.

I will ask, what are the challenges, how has virtual server infrastructure changed your school and do you see an increase in this methodology heading into 2011.