This post is part of the 7-part series Seven Top Benefits of Virtualizing Business Critical Applications.
When the application running on VMs is business critical, the stakes are even higher to keep resources available while adding more capacity on the fly. It is this moment when Hot-Add CPU and RAM become necessary. Hot-Add features help you manage fluctuating workloads with less risk. The Hot-Add features allow you to add RAM and CPU dynamically, without shutting down the virtual machine or application. When running business-critical applications, downtime is not an option.
When increasing demand starts to impact performance, it is often necessary to scale an application to restore service levels. Unfortunately, when running on dedicated physical servers, re-sizing applications requires re-provisioning on larger physical hosts, which is a time-consuming and highly disruptive undertaking. Databases are a good example. Administrators have to forecast capacity requirements years in advance and translate that estimate into system specs, including CPU and memory. If conditions change, the app must be re-provisioned, causing downtime, disruption, and serious unhappiness in the corner offices.
Learn more: Virtualizing Business Critical Applications Whitepaper [39-page PDF]
