From GNC.com - Government Computer new - Virtualization is on the verge of extending its reach into agency enterprises.
During the past year, server virtualization, which is the ability to run multiple instances of operating systems concurrently on a single hardware system, gathered momentum in the government sector. But increasingly, federal and state agencies are expanding — or at least thinking about expanding — beyond servers to apply virtualization to applications, desktop PCs and network infrastructures.
The Defense Information Systems Agency, for one, is taking virtualization into the cloud.
DISA recently deployed the Rapid Action Computing Environment, a cloud-computing infrastructure that lets Defense Department personnel quickly provision virtual machines so they can test and develop applications before putting them to real use.
Through a common Web portal, DOD and military service users can purchase a virtual machine. Within 24 hours, it will be set up for them, said Alfred Rivera, director of DISA’s Computing Services Directorate. They’ll pay for it on a monthly basis, and when they are finished, the virtual machine will be decommissioned, he said.
“We’re working to fine-tune some of the security issues but, in essence, it allows our customers to provision a virtual machine with memory, storage and [other] capability so they can download their applications to do test and development before they migrate to a pure production environment,” Rivera said.
Meanwhile, officials at the Defense Health Information Management System (DHIMS) program are moving forward with application virtualization technology that gives clinicians at Camp Lejeune, N.C., remote access to patients’ medical records stored in AHLTA, the military’s electronic health records system.
However, the most common use of virtualization is still for servers, as agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency look to consolidate their many server rooms.
States also are getting into the act. Arizona’s Department of Environmental Quality has implemented blade servers and virtualization software to reduce computing costs and save energy and space in the agency’s data center. And Pennsylvania has embarked on an initiative to virtualize the state’s entire data center.
