South Florida Technology Today

Virtualization: Understanding the True Potential

By now you’ve heard the word virtualization, but do you know the full potential of virtual servers? More than just software on a server, virtualization is a technology that can transfer your entire IT infrastructure.

Consolidating your IT infrastructure

Virtualization is best known for the ability to turn one physical server into multiple virtual servers.  Yes, one of the advantages is that it stores more data. That’s just one advantage.  A physical server uses about 20% of its capacity A virtual machine can handle up to 12 times as much processing.

Infrastructure Cost Reductions

Virtualization can drastically change your IT environment and your IT budget. Rooms previously filled with servers can contain some expensive square footage that can be re-purposed. Taking servers out of a room not only frees up space, it also means a reduction in cooling costs. Hot temperatures in Southern Florida means that server rooms need a lot of cooling. Think about this cost factor the next time you look at your energy bill.

It isn’t just the cooling costs that are a factor. By reducing your physical server footprint you’re also reducing your energy usage. Virtualizing your server environment can reduce your electric bills drastically. This isn’t just an immediate savings, it’s a savings over the lifetime of the server.

Freeing Up IT Time

Another benefit is that in a virtualized environment you have less physical servers to manage. This frees up the time of your IT team and helps you control the man-hours spent servicing your infrastructure.

Scalability

When the need does arise where you need to bring on another server then virtual machines allow you to scale up with relative ease without making an investment in new hardware. Virtual machines are not only scalable but they’re also reliable. Today’s modern virtualized servers also have a longer lifespan.

Disaster Recover and Data Backup

One other big advantage of virtualization that is often overlooked is the benefits it brings to data backup and disaster recovery. When done right, a virtualized environment makes back up and DR easier than ever. Consolidation allows for more affordability in the backup and DR process.  Do yourself a favor and build out a DR plan if you haven’t already. Virtualization helps with many aspects of backing up and restoring critical data.

Virtualization allows for faster Recovery time objectives, or disaster failovers. It also makes it easier for you to test your company’s preparedness before the next disaster strikes.

Virtualized environments offer too many advantages for you to not consider it for your IT environment.  Call Comprehensive Business Systems experts to realize your servers’ potential today.

To read more about how we help South Florida businesses with IT challenges like server virtualization, download our Case Study about our 27 year relationship with Baring Industries of Fort Lauderdale.