Technology Council Releases White Paper on Server Virtualization

CUNA Councils
October 14, 2009 | COMMENTS

Virtualization, the ability to partition a physical computer server into multiple functioning machines, has gained recognition and acceptance in recent years and is now considered viable in terms of start-up costs for many credit unions, according to a new white paper, “Server Virtualization,” from the CUNA Technology Council.

Close to 70% of credit unions with assets greater than $200 Million surveyed for CUNA's 2008 – 2009 Technology and Spending Report indicated plans toward putting virtual server technology in place within the next three years – a signal that the credit union movement is traveling at a rapid pace toward the next generation of system processing and storage.

According to the paper, server virtualization has many advantages for credit unions and their data centers:

• Massive reductions in the number of servers needed overall; a process that is known among IT professionals as “rack consolidation.”
• Reductions in space and energy needed to run and cool the IT infrastructure thereby generating a smaller carbon footprint and lower energy costs.
• Vast reductions in the time needed to bring new servers and applications online translating from an old standard of days and weeks to just hours and minutes within a virtualized system.
• The ability to easily switch virtual machines with functions or applications heavily in demand over the one virtual machine host to another to avoid overloading, showdowns, or a system crash
• Significant decrease in time needed to switch over servers for disaster recovery.

Changes can be dramatic. For example: Heritage Credit Union in Madison, Wis. with $153 million in assets reduced down from 16 physical box servers to 2 virtual server host machines. At the other end of the spectrum, Mid-Atlantic Corporate FCU with $3.5 billion in assets went from 100 physical box servers down to 8 virtual server host machines.

Within the paper, different models of server virtualization are explored including the virtual machine model, which currently dominates the market. Four in-depth case studies of credit unions are also presented as well as expert advice on related topics such as storage area networks and desktop virtualization.

CUNA Council members are entitled to complimentary copies of these and more than 200 white papers; non-members may purchase the white papers for a price of $50 per copy.

The paper is available online in the white paper section of each council site – select the “Tech” tab.