Virtualization: What Can It Really Do For My Business?
In part one of our series on virtualization, we examined the basics: what is it, and how does it work? Now, it's time for the million-dollar question ” what can virtualization really do for my business? Here are five essential benefits.
Cost
Common wisdom says that virtualization costs more than the cloud. In virtualized environments, you spend money on hardware but reduce the amount of software needed to access your resources. In the cloud you rent hardware, eliminating the need to purchase servers.
But there's more here than meets the eye. Over time, OpEx costs in the cloud begin to add up, and the hardware is never actually yours. In a virtual environment, meanwhile, you get the benefit of consolidation: what once took five or ten servers might only need one thanks to virtual machines (VMs), meaning you lower CapEx and reduce the number of servers you need to maintain. Properly managed, virtualized servers can offer significant cost savings over time.
Energy
You'll also lower energy consumption. And while œgoing green is great from a public relations standpoint, it also means you're spending less on power and energy every month. In addition, having less hardware in your server room or colocation data center means you're generating less heat, in turn reducing the chance that servers will burn out before their time or hard drives will go up in smoke.
Faster Provisioning
Relying on virtual rather than physical machines means you can scale up and provision resources on-demand rather than waiting for physical components. If business units request more capacity or have a specific need, simply clone or create a VM for them to use, complete with OS and up-to-date applications. The alternative? Order new hardware, wait for it to arrive, install everything and then bide your time until the OS and all necessary apps are installed and verified.
Upgrading hardware such as RAM, CPU or network adapters is also made easier with virtualization. Simply install the new components and every VM has access ” this allows you to determine the size of your upgrade, rather than guessing based on potential server use.
Cloud Migration
Virtualization isn't the cloud, but it can help you get ready for cloud migration. First, using VMs makes it easy to create workload backups and copy compute instances from server to server. Public, private and hybrid clouds take this a step further, migrating resources and workloads anywhere, anytime. Virtualization helps get companies in the cloud mindset by demonstrating that resources are not fixed to hardware but can instead be abstracted as needed.
Visibility
Virtual environments also provide total compute visibility, helping you to maximize resource use. Server running at 75 percent capacity? 90? Spin up more VMs to close the gap while still maintaining performance.
Want to make the most of your compute resources? ICC has experts ready to support your virtualization. Contact us today and discover the real benefits of going virtual.
-Written by Srijay Sunil
Virtualization: What Can It Really Do For My Business?
In part one of our series on virtualization, we examined the basics: what is it, and how does it work? Now, it's time for the million-dollar question ” what can virtualization really do for my business? Here are five essential benefits.
Cost
Common wisdom says that virtualization costs more than the cloud. In virtualized environments, you spend money on hardware but reduce the amount of software needed to access your resources. In the cloud you rent hardware, eliminating the need to purchase servers.
But there's more here than meets the eye. Over time, OpEx costs in the cloud begin to add up, and the hardware is never actually yours. In a virtual environment, meanwhile, you get the benefit of consolidation: what once took five or ten servers might only need one thanks to virtual machines (VMs), meaning you lower CapEx and reduce the number of servers you need to maintain. Properly managed, virtualized servers can offer significant cost savings over time.
Energy
You'll also lower energy consumption. And while œgoing green is great from a public relations standpoint, it also means you're spending less on power and energy every month. In addition, having less hardware in your server room or colocation data center means you're generating less heat, in turn reducing the chance that servers will burn out before their time or hard drives will go up in smoke.
Faster Provisioning
Relying on virtual rather than physical machines means you can scale up and provision resources on-demand rather than waiting for physical components. If business units request more capacity or have a specific need, simply clone or create a VM for them to use, complete with OS and up-to-date applications. The alternative? Order new hardware, wait for it to arrive, install everything and then bide your time until the OS and all necessary apps are installed and verified.
Upgrading hardware such as RAM, CPU or network adapters is also made easier with virtualization. Simply install the new components and every VM has access ” this allows you to determine the size of your upgrade, rather than guessing based on potential server use.
Cloud Migration
Virtualization isn't the cloud, but it can help you get ready for cloud migration. First, using VMs makes it easy to create workload backups and copy compute instances from server to server. Public, private and hybrid clouds take this a step further, migrating resources and workloads anywhere, anytime. Virtualization helps get companies in the cloud mindset by demonstrating that resources are not fixed to hardware but can instead be abstracted as needed.
Visibility
Virtual environments also provide total compute visibility, helping you to maximize resource use. Server running at 75 percent capacity? 90? Spin up more VMs to close the gap while still maintaining performance.
Want to make the most of your compute resources? ICC has experts ready to support your virtualization. Contact us today and discover the real benefits of going virtual.
-Written by Srijay Sunil