The Benefits of Virtualization Will Have You Converting Today
In today’s technology-driven business landscape, even small businesses find they rely on servers to power their technology needs. But does every server need to physically reside at a business’s location? Virtualization offers small businesses a convenient alternative. Let’s look at some of the many benefits of virtualization.
Save Money
Server virtualization saves small businesses money because it eliminates the need to purchase and host as many servers on premise. With virtualization, you can integrate multiple virtual servers from one physical server, affording more power with less space. Virtual servers act as physical servers and run their own operating systems, but don’t have an actual physical presence that requires as much team member time and attention.
Increase Team Productivity
Because fewer servers on premise mean fewer machines to manage, your IT team is free to tackle other tasks in the business. It’s common for employees to wear many hats in small businesses; if your IT person is pulling double duty, virtualization gives them time back to focus on other aspects of their role.
Improve Disaster Recovery
Virtualization can ease the chaos of disaster recovery as well. If your server is virtual, you don’t have a physical machine to recover or replace, which saves both time and expense. Rather, it’s a matter of getting the virtual server back online, which can take just hours rather than days.
Gain Live Migration, Minimal Downtime
Virtual servers give small businesses the ability to conduct live migration (moving information from one server to another in real time). Typically, this means that there’s hardly any downtime (seconds, at most) for businesses or their customers.
Improve Provisioning and Deployment
A provisioning and deployment process that would take hours with a physical server can take just minutes with a virtual server. This speed is particularly valuable to small businesses that need to scale quickly as they expand. As your small business grows, your physical space doesn’t need to grow with it to accommodate new server racks and machines. Virtualization allows for faster acquisition of server space, with fewer additional resources.
Prepare to Move to the Cloud
Virtualization can also help a small business prepare to move to the cloud. Virtual servers are the foundation of cloud computing, because they make “abstraction” possible. They bring information outside of physical servers and allow it to be seamlessly transferred from server to server, or from data center to data center, with ease. Virtualization also makes it possible for businesses to pool their network, memory, computing, and storage together to act as one large virtual computer that can then reallocate those resources to the applications that need them most. This type of resource distribution captures one of the main benefits of operating a business from a cloud environment, and is why embracing server virtualization can help small businesses more easily transition to the cloud in the future.
What other questions do you have about the benefits of virtualization? Reach out to us online to learn more about how virtualization could benefit your entire business practice.
