What Does Virtualization Sprawl Mean?
Virtualization sprawl is a term used to describe a scenario when the number of virtual machines on a network reaches a point where they can no longer be handled by the administrator effectively.
In order to prevent virtualization sprawl, a proper process must be defined and enforced by the administrators while deploying the virtual machines. A library of standardized virtual machine image files should be created in order to effectively manage the virtual environment.
Techopedia Explains Virtualization Sprawl
The concept of virtualization is based on the minimization of the physical hardware and maintenance costs. With virtual servers, the technical needs can be quickly met as the time taken to deploy a virtual server is only a fraction of the time taken to deploy a physical server.
Although there are many benefits of virtualization, some organizations find themselves in trouble as managing such a huge virtual environment becomes difficult. When virtualization sprawl occurs, support and security issues also increase rapidly leading to a huge number of unmanageable virtual machines.
