The use of virtual servers moves the University towards the following goals:
- Reduce campus electrical consumption,
- Provide more efficient use of computing hardware, and
- Reduce departments' time administering physical computing systems.
To request a virtual server, submit a UD Virtual Machine Request Form. (Instructions below.) You must connect to the UD VPN to access the request form from off-campus.
Why virtualization?
Using the central IT virtualization service provides departments with more flexibility than buying a physical server. There are no up-front costs, and departments are not locked into one configuration; the virtual server configuration, and associated costs, can be changed as a department's needs increase or decrease.
In addition, through IT-hosted server virtualization, University departments can realize greater efficiency by migrating stand-alone servers spread throughout campus to virtualized servers in the Chapel Street Computing Center. Server virtualization is a green technology because of the advantages of running many virtual servers on one physical system.
- Virtual servers use less energy than the individual servers they replace.
- Running multiple virtual servers on one physical device takes up less space.
- Purchasing systems for a central virtual "server farm" saves the University money when compared with buying a large number of individual physical servers.
- Using virtual servers in a location designed to handle the power and cooling requirements of multiple computing systems allows departments to stop making modifications to classrooms, offices, and closets to accommodate individual servers.
Pricing information
Virtual servers can be configured with 2-8 CPUs, 1-16 GB memory, up to 3TB of disk space, and the choice of one of several operating systems. Monthly pricing for each of these options is listed below.
- Per processor: $6.00/month
- Per GB memory: $6.00/month
- Per GB disk: $0.03 per GB/month
Sample Systems:
- LAMP server: 1 processor, 2GB memory, 30GB disk: $18.90/month, $226.80/year
- Windows 2008R2 server: 2 processors, 4GB memory, 80GB disk: $38.40/month, $460.80/year
- Database server: 4 processors, 16Gb memory, 60GB disk, 2TB external disk: $181.80/month, $2,181.60/year
Note: You must also purchase software and operating system licenses for hosted machines as applicable.
Requesting a virtual machine
To request a virtual server, submit a UD Virtual Machine Request Form. You must connect to the UD VPN to access the request form from off-campus. You'll need to provide
- Budget information:
- Purpose code
- Purpose code administrator
- Purpose code administrator email address.
- The desired domain name for the virtual machine.
- Specifications for the virtual machine.