Just virtualize it!

Shoe string budgets and virtual servers are a pretty good mix.  But there are so many ways to virtualize servers, how do you know where to start?

The best place to start is to know what everyone's talking about when they talk "virtual."  Wikipedia has an article on virtual machines, you can find it here.  It covers a lot of information, including the history of virtual machines, tons of technical information, a huge intimidating list of virtualizing projects and software, and in general a lot of stuff that you're probably never going to need to know.

Virtualizing centers around the idea of running multiple computers (or virtual machines) on one computer (one physical machine).  This can be accomplished many different ways and is where all the information in that Wikipedia article looses a lot of people.  Just remember, multiple computers on top of one computer.

What's the advantage in that?  I like the ability to only have to acquire a server once and then being able to use that same server for a bunch of different stuff.  Combine that with some open source software and you can be doing a lot of stuff for not a lot of money.

Imagine being able to run DNS, DHCP, and a print server all on one box.  Wait, don't you already run that on one box?  Ok, so you've got that one box that runs all DNS/DHCP/print services and it's rock solid, no errors, and everything works.  Now, you've got an administrator that comes back from a conference and they heard about this new thing called "Drupal" and it's great, wonderful, and free and they think you should start using that.  Without a virtual server you can either, buy a new server to run it on, or you can install it on top of your perfectly running DNS/DHCP/print server.  One costs money, and the other could turn into a real disaster if it all doesn't go well.  And what happens if you set up your Drupal server and then a month later that same administrator decides that they'd rather use Elgg instead?  You're either reloading a server (that wasn't in your original budget) or you're stuck cleaning up your otherwise perfectly running DNS/DHCP/print server.  If you'd instead decided to virtualize your server, getting rid of an unwanted server could be as easy as deleting a few files.  Want to run Elgg and Drupal at the same time to compare them?  Ok, just a few clicks and you're setting up a new server right along side your existing servers without having to buy any new hardware, not having to figure out where it's going in the rack, no crawling around looking for that last outlet on the UPS, or tracing network cables trying to figure out where you've got an available switch port.

Virtualizing may be a little more complicated than just clicking a few mouse buttons, but not by much.  Stay tuned and we'll see just how uncomplicated it can be.