A proposal for improving data center management through strategic implementation of Server virtualization technology to support Malaysian Nuclear Agency's activities

Management of servers in Nuclear Malaysia's data center poses a big challenge to IT Center as well as to the general management. Traditional server management techniques have been used to provide reliable and continuous support for the ever increasing services and applications demanded by researchers and the other staffs of Nuclear Malaysia. Data centers are cost centers which need logistical support such as electricity, air conditioning, room space, manpower and other resources. To save cost and comply with Green Technology while maintaining or improving the level of services, a new concept called server virtualization is proposed and a feasibility study of this technology has been initiated to explore its potential to accommodate IT centers ever demanding services while reducing the need for such logistical supports, hence adhering to the Green IT concept. Server virtualization is a new technology where a single high performance physical server can host multiple high processing services, and different types operating systems with different hardware and software requirements which are traditionally performed by multiple server machines. This paper briefly explains server virtualization concepts, tools and techniques and proposes an implementation strategy of the technology for Nuclear Malaysia's data center. (author)