Dynamic IT
With Hyper-V, organizations can implement dynamic IT environments.
Dynamic IT environments provide a new approach to provisioning
servers that is based on actual utilization and service demand rather
than on less flexible criteria, such as expected demand.
The dynamic IT environment concept uses Hyper-V to run multiple
virtual machines on several physical host computers.
However, there is no one-to-one mapping between the virtual machines
and physical hosts.
The management logic of the dynamic IT environment assigns the
virtual machines according to utilization and demand.
For example, if the IT environment hosts a Web-based application and
the number of simultaneous requests to the Web site increases, the
management logic can automatically provide one or more additional Web
servers.
When provisioning these Web servers, the management software takes
into account the workload on the current physical hardware.
If the IT environment load continues to increase, the management
logic can switch on additional physical computers and start up more
virtual machines to meet the load.
As the load fluctuates, virtual machines can be transferred between
host computers to keep hardware utilization rates high. Unused host
computers can then be turned off, which reduces both power consumption
and cooling requirements, and therefore helps minimize running costs.