What is virtualization and how can it benefit a small company with 1 - 5 servers?

Virtualization is the process of encapsulating software (Operating systems and applications) in a non-hardware dependant operating environment or so called Virtual Machine. Doing so has a number of advantages to large and small businesses alike.

Consolidation 

Virtualization is a great way to maximize your already existing IT investments. Studies show that most server platforms are underutilized and chances are you are not even leveraging 20% of your servers computing power. By encapsulating your servers into virtual machines you can divide the CPU, Memory and Storage capabilities of a single piece of hardware to multiple virtual servers. Rather than buy 5 servers to support 5 applications such as Email, Database, Web, or File/Print services you can purchase 2 servers and divde the resources amongst the 5 applications as needed.

Disaster Recovery

You really can't beat Virtualization for Disaster Recovery. VMware's ESX line of virtualization products support online snapshots that take minutes rather than hours. Virtual Machine's can be replicated from one hardware platform to another without any modification to the application or operating system. If your application experiences data corruption or the operating system crashes you can be up and running in seconds rather than waiting for IT personel to rebuild the platform.

Cost Reduction 

If the above two features don't paint a compelling picture already, than consider the cost savings to your IT operation. With the appropriate measure now in place, you don't need to maintain teams of IT people to be at hand to repair or diagnose problems with your server infrastucture. One skilled IT person can quickly recover snapshots of your environment and keep your business running. Further more by not purchasing excessive numbers of hardware, you not only save hardware costs but power costs as well. Many companies report a 60% reduction in IT Capital Costs within the first year of implementing a virtualization strategy in their networks. Now how about this, the entry level virtualization software needed to realize 90% of these benifits, Is FREE!

Darkriver Consulting specializes in virtualization projects and is a proud partner with VMware and Microsoft the two leading virtualization software providers.

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