Virtualization may sound like a modern concept but the idea has actually been around since as far back as the 60s. To put it simply, virtualization allows your physical hardware to leverage software in order to create several abstract instances known as “virtual machines”. That way, it’s like you’re running multiple individual computers – each with its own operating system and applications – within a single machine.
What Are the Benefits of Utilizing Virtualization in Your Environment?
Implementing virtualization comes with a lot of upsides. Let’s take a look at some of its advantages.
Less Physical Hardware
One of the biggest benefits of incorporating virtualization in your framework is that it helps you significantly lessen the quantity of physical hardware you need to own to keep your environment running.
Let’s say, for example, that your current setup has an individual system for each application that’s currently in use. Through virtualization, you can just spend a little extra on a more powerful machine instead, and use that one physical system to create multiple virtual ones. That way, each virtual system would be able to run its own applications, eliminating the need of having various physical machines.
This could save you a ton of money in the long run, since you won’t have to purchase new hardware every time you want to run more applications. Instead, you could make use of the available computing resources in your current framework and utilize virtualization to create virtual machines that could run the applications just as well.
More Environmentally Friendly
It’s also a fantastic idea for organizations that are looking to go green, as less hardware translates to fewer electronics that you have to power through a wall socket. A lower electricity bill is both lighter on your wallet and better for the environment, so it’s definitely a win-win.
Build More Redundancies In One Place
You’re free to create virtual machines as redundancies for the applications that you’re running. That way, if one of your virtual servers fails, you’ll have another in place as a backup that can take over its duties. And since you’re utilizing virtualization, these fail-safes will be housed within the same machine, as opposed to having to purchase extra hardware every time you want to build more redundancies.
Virtual machines are also exceedingly easier to clone, back up, or copy compared to physical hardware, and you can easily migrate them to another server and have them up and running in no time.
Better Expansion Capabilities
To expand an environment that uses separate pieces of hardware, you’d need to purchase additional hardware each time you want to add new applications or create more backups. This can be a costly affair.
The expansion of virtualized environments, on the other hand, would only require you to upgrade the hardware that’s housing the virtual machines, or you could purchase a more powerful server altogether which would allow you to create more virtual machines for various purposes.
For example, you could purchase SAN (Storage Area Networks), which is a storage solution that you can attach to your environment without the need of adding another server.
It May Be Time To Switch To Virtualization
In the end, organizations consider virtualization for their environments to either save money, achieve better performance, or both. It’s easier to maintain, cheaper to upgrade, and simpler to fix in case anything goes wrong. Plus, it’ll save you a ton on your electric bill and it’s way more efficient in the sense that you’ll be maximizing all the computing power your hardware has to offer. That being said, you might want to start figuring out how to implement virtualization in your organization.
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