Microsoft and Target Work Together to apply Virtualization Software

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Microsoft has added Target, the retail store, to its clients in the area of virtualization software application.

What is Virtualization?

Virtualization, or putting an operating system, inside an operating system and then putting applications in that inside operating system to run. If your base computer is powerful enough, and they can now be, you can put a database server in one virtual machine and a database server in another virtual machine, and both could reside on the same piece of hardware. What makes the system vibrant, is that one application does not detract from the operations of the other.

VMWare is the industry leader in that capacity, but Microsoft has been pushing towards virtualization for some time now. For XP, they had the Virtual Server and Virtual PC, which allowed users to create devices that could be ported to different locations. The devices had a vhd extension, and you could create a vmc, or Virtual Machine, to run the program.

Server 2008

Microsoft did not stop with VM's, in fact they went an extra step with their Hyper-V implementaion found in Server 2008. You could create networks inside your Server 2008 box and run multiple virtual devices. So this is what Target was looking at for their own IT scenario.

Target and Cost Savings

Target is using virtualization technology to run cash registers and the computers, some which are used to guide restocking inventory. Target manages all of its store technology remotely and it feels that it will reduce the number of servers in its stores from seven to two, which overall, will eliminate over 8,000 servers in the process. This affects two strategic cost factors one is that not only does the cost of replacing the hardware is eliminated, but secondly, on a day to day basis it also eliminates the expense of maintaining it and this includes the cost of power, via electricity used to run the machines. In all, this form of virtualization will be closely watched by other retailers to see how the bottom line is affected.