The benefits of virtualization apply to the IT enterprise and industrial automation including:
- Application load-balancing.
- Decreased energy consumption and footprint.
- Extended lifecycles and more.
- Hardware consolidation.
- High availability.
- Improved uptime.
- Increased fault tolerance.
- Rapid disaster recovery.
A complete virtual solution consists of software and hardware components.
Typical virtualization architectures consist of physical components including servers (hosts), storage arrays, Ethernet networks, a management PC, and desktop clients.
Considerations for Designing a Solution
- Review and discuss the following items with plant managers and vendors before investing in a solution:
- Server and storage sizing
- Network configuration
- OS licensing
- Virtualization software licensing
- Engineers can use the characterized data (CPU, Memory, IOPS, etc.) to understand system requirements and specify system components.
Read How To Implement Virtualization In Process Manufacturing from MBT Mag