How Virtualization Helps Your Business

In computing terms, virtualization is the process of creating virtual instances of something, such as an operating system, a server, a storage device or network resources. A software technology that allows one piece of hardware run on multiple instances of software systems. In short, Virtualization is a combination of software and hardware engineering that creates Virtual Machines (VMs) – an abstraction of the computer hardware that allows a single machine to act as if it where many machines.
It has revolutionised how IT infrastructures are deployed and managed. At Hybrid Technology Partners, we have been working with virtualization technologies for over ten years. Our most common virtualization scenarios is consolidating companies existing server infrastructure. Here are some of the key benefits of using virtualization technologies in such a scenario.

• Extend the life of older applications – By virtualizing and encapsulating the old legacy software application and its environment, you can extend its life, maintain uptime, and finally get rid of that old Pentium machine hidden in the corner of the Comms room.
• Business Continuity – One of the greatest advantages of Server virtualization is that your server environment can be copied to another physical box that acts a replication in the case of physical causing trouble. This means if there is a catastrophic failure, your server environment can easily be replicated and your business back up and running in no time.
• Reduced Power, Reduced Costs – Consolidating your existing server architecture to just one or two boxes, saves on the cost of powering the extra machines as well as the ancillary back up power needed for redundancy. Not only will your company save on the physical server hardware, power and cooling of the servers that were consolidated, you will also save on the time it used to take to administer physical servers. End users will be more productive thanks to less downtime.

These are just a few of the benefits of using virtualization technology. From a business owner or manager’s point of view, the reduction in costs by using virtualisation are very apparent. The ability to recover from a disaster scenario in little or no time at all will make them sleep a little more soundly at night whilst the reduction in running cost are obvious. If you would like to discuss further about how this technology can help your business then feel free to contact us on 061 21144 or 1800 911 000.