Virtualization is a proven software technology that is rapidly transforming the IT landscape and fundamentally changing the way that people compute. New Horizon's virtualization services let you run multiple virtual machines on a single physical machine, sharing the resources of that single computer across multiple environments.

Our virtualization services will let you run and operate different virtual machines with different operating systems and multiple applications on the same physical computer.

Benefits of Server Virtualization Server virtualization provides many benefits, which include:

• Server consolidation . Many servers that organizations deploy are underutilized. By deploying multiple virtual machines on fewer physical servers, you can increase the server resource utilization significantly while decreasing the number of physical servers. You can deploy many virtual machines on one physical server. In most organizations, this will result in a significant decrease in power and space consumption in the data centers.
• Service or application isolation. Server virtualization enables you to run each service or application on an isolated operating system. This means that you can prevent one application from impacting another application when upgrades or changes are made. This is preferable to running multiple applications or services on a single operating system.
• Simplified server deployment. By creating standard virtual machine builds, you can deploy new server builds more easily. Because you are deploying virtual machines rather than physical servers, you also do not need to acquire new hardware, and locate data center space and power, for each new server. Note: You may need to invest in new server and storage hardware when you first implement server virtualization, but an important result of server virtualization is the decrease in the number of physical servers that your organization has.
• Increased service and application availability. Because the service or application no longer connects directly to a specific piece of hardware, it is much easier to ensure high availability and recoverability. With Live Migration in Windows Server 2008 R2, you can move a virtual machine to another physical server with users experiencing little or no service outage.
• Multiple operating systems can run on one consistent platform. With server virtualization, you can deploy multiple operating system technologies on a single hardware platform. For example, you can deploy Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Linux on one Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V host. Server virtualization also makes it much easier to replace hardware when it becomes obsolete or fails.
  

What Is Desktop Virtualization?

Desktop virtualization provides new options for deploying client desktops by enabling several ways to virtualize the desktop. Traditionally, users work on a specific piece of hardware that is running a single operating system and all applications.

Client-Hosted Desktop Virtualization Client-hosted desktop virtualization uses Microsoft Virtual PC on Windows Vista and Windows Virtual PC on Windows 7 to enable users to run multiple virtual machines on their Windows desktop. Client-hosted desktop virtualization creates a separate environment on the desktop, allowing incompatible legacy or LOB applications to operate within their native environment on a more-current desktop operating system. In Windows 7, Microsoft provides a preconfigured Windows XP virtual machine that can be run as a Windows Virtual PC virtual machine. Windows XP mode enables you to run applications seamlessly from a Windows 7 computer or from the Windows XP virtual machine.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure VDI extends the concept of desktop virtualization by running client operating systems as virtual machines on a data center's servers. This means that the virtual client computers are not running on the user desktop, but on a centralized Hyper-V environment in the data center. Users can interact with the virtual machines by using regular computers or thin clients, and then establishing remote desktop connections to the virtual machines. In Windows Server 2008, VDI has been integrated with RDP to provide a consistent client experience. VDI enables you to centralize a user's desktop for easier management. The users have an individualized desktop experience with full administrative control over desktop and applications. Therefore, VDI can be a very effective solution for users who need to access their work environment from anywhere, including from a PC that their company does not own. By centralizing the management of the client virtual machines, you do not need to be as concerned about the location or the device from which the user is connecting. Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization

The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) includes MED-V, which enhances the management of the virtual machines that deploy to user desktops. MED-V adds four additional features and advantages on top of Virtual PC to enable enterprise deployment of desktop virtualization:

• A virtual image repository and delivery of images, which simplifies the process of creating, testing, delivering, and updating virtual images.
• Centralized management and monitoring, which manages the life cycle of a virtual machine.
• Usage policy and data transfer control, which is an endpoint agent that enforces usage policies for the virtual machine.
• A seamless end-user experience.

What Is Application Virtualization?

You can use application virtualization to create virtual applications that you then can distribute to user desktops. Each virtual application includes its own registry entries, specific dynamic-link libraries (DLLs), and other resources. When you deploy a virtual application, it uses its own copy of these shared resources. Because the virtual application runs in an isolated environment, incompatible applications can share the same workstation. Microsoft App-V is an application virtualization solution.

Application virtualization provides the following benefits:

• Application virtualization enables organizations to run potentially incompatible applications on the same client computer. Applications commonly share various application or operating system components with other applications on the client computer. For example, one application might require a specific version of a DLL, while another application on that system might require a different version of the same DLL. Installing both applications may result in one of the applications overwriting the DLL that the other requires. With application virtualization, each application can have its own version of all required files and settings on the client computer.
• Application virtualization makes preparation significantly easier. Since you encapsulate applications in an isolated virtual environment, there is less of a requirement to test new applications for conflicts with existing applications before you roll them out.
• From the user's perspective, a virtual application looks just like any other application. The user may start it from the Start menu, from a desktop icon, or by file extension association. The application appears in Task Manager, and it can use printers, network connections, and other resources that attach to the machine.
• Virtual applications are easy to deploy and manage . You can stream a virtual application from a server, on demand, so the user can download it automatically the first time he needs to use it. If you must update an application, administrators can update the server's version of the application, and the updated files then download the next time the client computer needs to run the application.