Why Virtualization Is Good for Your Business

If you have ever split your computer drive into multiple partitions, you have engaged in what is known as virtualization. A drive partition is defined as a logical division that splits your current hard drive into two separate drives.

The same can be done with operating systems as well. It’s called operating system virtualization. Here, you use software to enable your hardware to host multiple images of the same operating system simultaneously. Virtualization is a technological solution that was borne from mainframes years ago; at a time when finding a solution to processing, power costs was a priority.

Businesses that depend on multiple servers have no choice but to use virtualization as a way to keep things running. In fact, they can’t survive without it. However, virtualization isn’t limited to large companies exclusively. Though it is often discussed in the context of larger enterprises, under the right circumstances, it can be leveraged by small and medium-sized businesses as well.

In fact, we have listed out a few of the benefits of virtualization below.

More savings

One of the most obvious benefits of virtualization is the cost savings that arise out of it. As we mentioned earlier, virtualization allows you to run multiple versions of an operating system via a single server. This reduces energy consumption and cooling requirements, as your business only needs to rely on a single server. Additionally, the hardware refresh cycles are extended as well.

Better recovery

Disaster recovery is a breeze with virtualization since you don’t rely on physical hardware vendors anymore. A virtualized system allows for easier creation and restoration of operating system images. You can even test disaster recovery scenarios as often as possible, which is something that is simply not possible with a non-virtualized environment. You will actually require identical servers to carry out such testing.

Fewer downtime/outage events

Virtualization offers businesses the ability to cut down on downtime and outage events by leveraging features such as live virtual machine, storage migration, fault tolerance, distributed resource scheduling, and high availability.

The need to shut down operating systems for the purpose of upgrading them or carrying out maintenance is eliminated.

Quality assurance/testing

If your business intends to install new software and applications, the first thing is to test them out. Virtualization makes this much easier by providing a virtual platform on which the application/software can be tested. You can test the software or application to its fullest before deploying it within the live environment.

Easier cloud migration

Another major benefit of virtualization is that it allows for easier migration to the cloud. This is because virtualization has operating systems resting within a virtual environment. There is no physical environment, thereby, simplifying the migration process. There is a reduction in migration cost and time as well.

Client virtualization

A new type of virtualization called client virtualization makes it possible for businesses to run their entire desktop environments through a central server. All the processing takes place on these servers.