Five Business Benefits of Virtualization
Itโs a safe bet your business is always looking for ways to reduce waste. One place you might not yet have looked? Virtualization of your information technology. Choosing to virtualize servers offers several business benefits. Here are the top five.
Letโs first clarify what we mean by virtualization. Weโre not talking about a Ready Player One-like takeover of your business. Employees arenโt donning VR headsets to work in an all-encompassing virtual universe.
Instead, weโre referring to a virtualization of servers. The work of multiple physical servers are handled on a single server or a cloud-based environment. Say you have three physical servers: one handles mail, another handles internet and routing, and the third proprietary, business applications. Each of these dedicated servers may not be at full capacity, but you need all three.
With virtualization, the workloads are no longer tied to specific hardware. Software monitors and allocates IT resources. This means many things can happen at once on the same machines. Thatโs where we start seeing the benefits this article explores.
#1 Greater Efficiency With virtualization you can make better use of your server capabilities. Computer hardware running a single operating system or application underutilizes your IT. Organizations running more than one virtual system on a server take full advantage of their tech.
#2 Lower Costs Virtualizing a server helps reduce spending. Housing many applications on one server, a business better meets storage and processing demands. This can cut down on hardware expenditure.
The business also isnโt paying to power machines it isnโt using fully. Plus, cutting back on hardware in the physical environment can reduce cooling demands. This saves on energy bills while helping the businessโs corporate social responsibility goals.
Reclaiming the space used for physical servers, the business can also increase profit generation.
#3 Improved Responsiveness Virtualization offers greater operational flexibility. A business can respond to market changes with faster dynamic resource management. With a virtual server, you can backup operating systems and applications efficiently. Rather than dealing with hours of downtime, a virtual environment is deployed in minutes. Moving, copying, or saving data from virtualized machines can be point-and-click simple.
#4 Enhanced Disaster Recovery A severe weather event or malware attack could take a physical server out of commission. The business struggles to install its backup (if it has one) on a new server. With a virtualized server, itโs much simpler to replicate that information.
Itโs also easier to do full backups with server virtualization. A business is more likely to have the latest, most up-to-date data available in the event of a disaster.
#5 Reduced Need for Repairs and Support Owning physical servers means constant monitoring and maintenance demands. Reducing the need for physical hardware can cut back on repairs and demand for support. With fewer servers and related hardware, valuable IT experts can focus on challenging, rewarding work. That helps with employee morale and retention, too!
Gartner (a research and advisory company) has estimated that businesses that virtualize save up to 50% compared to those relying on physical resources. That virtualized business is also increasing their speed and security. Save the staggering costs of downtime, and improve IT productivity with server virtualization.
Ready for virtualization? We can set up the right virtualization solution for your business. Reach out to us today at (615) 522-0080.
Safe Network Solutions is a technology consulting firm located in Nashville, TN. We are focused on reducing our Clientsโ stress and the time they spend handling IT related issues. As technology has become more integrated with daily business tasks, downtime is not an option. Whether your systems reside on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid setup, you need a partner with expertise in a wide array of technologies, with a security focus.
