Understanding Server Virtualization

Continued from page: 1

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Learnings from an ISP: Server virtualization at Net4India 

Net4India uses several server virtualization techniques for its business. One of them is application-level virtualization, wherein it offers corporate e-mail solution using its custom built application BizMail+. This application is able to run up to 1000 mailboxes on one dual-Xeon server with 4 GB of memory. Using this, Net4India can combine up to 200 mailboxes and 
offer them as a solution to customers. While everything runs on a single server, the customer only sees a customized mailing 
solution complete with his company's colors, logo, etc. The virtualization technology keeps each customer's mailbox 
separate from others. All servers are kept in a failover cluster for failsafe operation, due to which the customer never knows if a server to go down due to this. All virtualized environments are constantly monitored for server resource utilization to prevent any instance from hogging all server resources. 

Net4India also does OS-level virtualization for its Linux-based Web hosting services. For this, the company uses RedHat Linux with a virtualization component. This component allows the ISP to create multiple Linux kernels on top of a single Linux server. Each kernel can then be offered to a customer. Once again, the customer sees a full-fledged Linux server running, while actually it's a virtual server running at the backend. 

One interesting fact that emerged from our discussions with Net4India was that using virtualization technology, ISPs are able to offer services at very competitive rates. It's because they no longer have to put up dedicated physical servers for each customer, saving on the hardware costs. So the next time your ISP offers you a dedicated server at a very attractive price, check whether it's a dedicated physical server being offered or a virtual one.

With inputs from Jasjit Sawhney, CEO and Desi Valli, Net4India

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