Sugar. Spice. And everything nice… These were the ingredients chosen for creating the perfect… wait, that’s for Powerpuff Girls. The ingredients for the perfect IT techs are tasks, recognition, and reward, and then spill in some Chemical X, also known as expectation.
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From antiquity to the postmodern age, the human mind has been on a continuous journey into the unknown. Profound technologies once thought of only in SciFi films like flexible and stretchable OLED screens and programmed viruses that target cancer cells are being successfully tested now. Virtualization, like the grid in TRON, is a tangible glimpse of what the future has in store, but remains an unknown for many IT departments. VMware’s ESX Server offers weilds benefit and is straightforward to use.

There are many virtualization utilities available, but my experience with ESX has been very positive. The only oddity is that it also flies by the name of vSphere. So, when going to download or get support for ESX one has to look under vSphere Hypervisor. I say ESX, but really it is ESXi. Previously, all the administrative utilities were built outside the kernel which takes more space. ESXi places it all inside the kernel which is not only smaller, but provides better security.

Here’s where ESXi is like “the grid”: it takes reality into the virtual dimension. That is, it takes physical servers and makes them virtual. Not only can they be turned off and on but they can each be assigned their own IP address. The benefit of virtual servers over real ones is that you can flex the hardware as needed, or even just delete the virtual server if it isn’t needed. This is a dream for anyone in IT.

Whether consolidating already existing servers or looking to do testing or trying out new software, virtual servers is the way to go. VMware provides a tool called the vCenter Converter that takes physical machines and creates virtual ones from them. This is a hit or a miss. You can either boot to a CD or install it on the OS, but the errors come when there are incompatible drivers and the like. Whether its VMware, KVM, or what have you, venture into the unknown and get on the grid.