Application Virtualization Takes Businesses Farther than Many Thought Possible

Accelerate Business Agility and Cost Savings Using SmartSOA and Application Virtualization

So, you have implemented virtualization in your server farm, your data storage, and your network and are reaping the benefits of simplification, consolidation, and flexibility that are the hallmarks of IBM Virtualization. You also probably think that you have taken the virtualization road about as far as you can in your data center. Yet, there is another critical aspect of virtualization technology which you may not yet have tapped into.

There is another leg underpinning the IBM Virtualization platform, and that is application virtualization using WebSphere Extended Deployment (Websphere XD) software. Application virtualization complements server, storage, and network virtualization and enables businesses to push the boundaries of their IT infrastructures further for greater agility, cost savings, operational efficiency, and manageability. Application virtualization using WebSphere XD enables CIOs and IT administrators to do more with less — quite literally. With application virtualization, data centers can run applications on any application server in a common resource pool. Furthermore, administrators can deploy resources quickly and seamlessly during peak periods and in response to unforseen demand for mission-critical applications. Last but certainly not least, data administrators can also achieve application response times and service levels that meet Service Level Agreements.

WebSphere XD provides application virtualization for a heterogeneous IT environment managing and optimizing a wide range of application servers including WebSphere, Apache, BEA WebLogic, JBoss, and Oracle application servers. WebSphere XD supports many operating systems, including AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Sun Solaris, Windows, and z/OS.

Reining in Costs with WebSphere XD
Together with the server, storage, and network virtualization, WebSphere XD addresses one of the major causes of rising costs and complexity in the data center — the tendency for data "silos" to develop in the data center. While silos are a great way for farmers to store grain, silos in the data center are a detriment to efficient data processing.

“System i servers are defined by software, not by hardware: In theory, that makes the System i server itself a virtual machine.”

The IDC research firm has revealed that the total cost of ownership for servers continues to rise, despite the fact that spending on servers has actually remained fairly flat. Between 1996 and 2006, the total cost of ownership for servers worldwide rose from US$98 billion to more than US$250 billion. The rising costs are projected to continue and are being driven, first and foremost, by server management and administration costs. The secondary driver behind rising ownership costs for servers is the cost of power and cooling for data centers. With the cost of electricity and personnel rising, CIOs and IT administrators clearly have their work cut out for them when it comes to containing costs.

Most telling, however, is the hidden cost of the well-established fact that businesses typically buy servers to satisfy peak demand for processing, leaving the vast majority of their data centers' capacity idle most of the time. The utilization rate of the typical server is approximately 15 percent. This low utilization rate means that the cost of unutilized — not underutilized — assets in the data center is US$140 billion.

With Application Virtualization, Less Is More
That's a staggering sum from any perspective. Application virtualization can be an important step toward putting those unutilized processing assets to work. Application virtualization enables data center administrators to dynamically adjust resources across the infrastructure. Think of it as being able to do what data centers have been able to do in the mainframe for years and to extend that capability across a heterogeneous distributed enterprise.

Just how does application virtualization help you lower costs? First, there are the obvious and immediate savings:

• Lower administrative expenses.
• Greatly improves the utilization of existing resources.
• Dramatically reduces the need for new servers in the data center.
• Reduces the number of software licenses to pay for and monitor.
• Allows you to recapture valuable space for more productive uses.
• Increases your power and cooling efficiencies.

Application virtualization using WebSphere XD delivers longer-term value for your SOA to take it to the next level:

• High qualities of services that ensure the health of applications, services, and associated processes.
• Increases application availability and ensures resiliency.
• Improves response time and performance through real-time visibility into application health for proactive response to potential performance issues.
• Rapid deployment of new applications and services.
• Better management of peak loads and response to unforeseen demand.

Real world experiences of business with application virtualization paint a compelling picture of its potential. Take Westpac, the Australian banking company with more than 1,000 branch locations. As a result of organic growth and acquisitions, Westpac ended up with an IT infrastructure that consisted of multiple heterogeneous platforms and disparate applications. The bank struggled to integrate its systems and provide business users with required information in the right context and at the right time. Specifically, the bank's customer presentation platform utilized outdated, non-standardized technology and was approaching end-of-life in terms of both support and maintenance. Westpac needed to modernize its customer presentation platform with standardized, state-of-the-art technology from a leading IT vendor.

The new customer presentation platform built with WebSphere XD, WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere Portal, and System p servers provides a strategic shared services infrastructure that will facilitate future IT deployments for the client. The IBM WebSphere Portal Enable software provides the main customer presentation services layer through a business-to-consumer (B2C) credit card application. Westpac benefits from the availability and reliability using WebSphere Extended Deployment software, along with intelligent routing and improved load balancing. Westpac now has the ability to roll out other WebSphere software-based applications without experiencing system outages.

By using WebSphere XD to virtualize applications, Westpac has been able to consolidate 100 disparate applications, while simultaneously increasing the availability and reliability of its services to business clients.

IBM delivers application virtualization capabilities that enable top-line business growth through the delivery of high qualities of service that ensure the health of your applications, services and associated processes, while simultaneously controlling costs associated with the underlying application and service infrastructure that drive business processes.

The lesson is simple: Just because you have implemented virtualization in servers, network, and storage don't assume you have taken virtualization as far as you can. Application virtualization offers a whole new roadmap for, quite literally, doing more with less in the data center.