How Does Virtualisation Improve Business?

This article was originally on the New Horizons Learning Solutions Blog.

How Does Virtualisation Improve Business?

Top 5 Business Benefits of Server Virtualisation

Virtualisation is not an IT trend. It is also not new, but it is new in many organisations, as companies of all sizes invest in virtualisation technologies to reap it’s many benefits: energy savings, server and desktop provisioning, reduction in physical servers, increased uptime and availability, better disaster recovery…and the list goes on.

Switching to virtualisation means that the workloads happening on servers are not tied to a specific piece of physical hardware and that multiple virtual workloads can occur simultaneously on the same piece of machinery. The immediate benefits of virtualisation include higher server utilisation rates in the data centre and lower costs, but there are more sophisticated advantages as well.

Server virtualisation has proven itself to be a revolutionary technology solution for IT management, presenting capabilities that would never be possible within a physical infrastructure. At an economic stance, the benefits of server virtualisation are focused on cost savings because it allows multiple applications to be installed on a single physical server.

So how exactly can your company benefit from a virtual infrastructure? Let’s take a look at the top five ways:

1. Reduced Hardware Costs

It is said that humans theoretically only use 10% of their brain command; most of the servers in a strictly physical environment are heavily under-utilised, using an estimated 5-15% of their capacity. When you implement a virtualised server / cloud computing approach, hardware utilisation is increased because one physical server can now hold multiple virtual machines. Applications no longer need their own server because each virtual machine on the physical server now runs them. In 2011, IDC reported a 40% reduction in hardware and software costs for IT departments that adopted a server virtualisation strategy.

2. Faster Server Provisioning and Deployment

Server virtualisation enables system provisioning and deployment within minutes, allowing you to clone an existing virtual machine without the hours and costs normally spent installing a new physical server. Companies with virtual environments already look back and cringe at the grueling process of filling out a purchase order, waiting for the server to arrive and then waiting hours for the operating system and applications to finish installing.

Time and cost add up substantially, not to mention the growing number of racks and cables you would have to purchase to accommodate for the increasing number of physical servers. Datacenter virtualisation is most certainly necessary for most businesses to keep up with the explosion of data resources needed to keep pace with competitors.

The article continues to describe:

• Greatly Improved Disaster Recovery
• Significant Energy Cost Savings
• Increased Productivity

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