The COVID-19 pandemic is driving increased interest in virtualization as a means of remotely managing servers. Many virtualization platforms offer a browser-based management interface that can be accessed from anywhere — a boon for administrators who are working from home.

But remote management is just one of the many benefits of virtualization. Hypervisor software creates and manages virtual machines (VMs) that share server resources, making it possible to run multiple applications on a single machine. By breaking the one-to-one relationship between hardware and operating systems, virtualization provides pools of IT resources that can be allocated as needed to meet business requirements. As a result, virtualization allows organizations to reduce costs, increase operational efficiencies, improve business continuity, and create a more agile IT environment.

Reducing Costs and Increasing Operational Efficiencies

In a traditional hardware-centric IT environment, a separate server must be purchased and deployed to run each application — even if that application is rarely used. Each server requires network connectivity, storage, and backup resources, further increasing the capital investment. All of that equipment requires space, power, and cooling that can add thousands of dollars per year in operational costs.

The total cost of ownership quickly mounts due to the IT staff resources needed to maintain this complex environment. Simply managing backups and distributing patches and upgrades can demand many staff hours.

Virtualization helps organizations rein in these costs in three primary ways:

Reduced capital investments in hardware. Although virtualization requires more powerful servers to support multiple applications, organizations typically see significant cost savings because fewer machines are needed.

Data Center consolidation. Virtualization allows organizations to consolidate their server farms and improve hardware utilization by up to 80 percent. This helps reduce power and cooling costs and delay data center expansions.

Increased IT efficiency. Reduced server maintenance and application management burdens allow IT departments to do more with less staff — and better utilize staff skills throughout a unified environment.

Improving Business Continuity

Disaster recovery has traditionally been a complex and costly proposition. Organizations had to replicate the IT environment in a secondary site that sat idle until needed. In addition to investing in more hardware, organizations had to manage and maintain the secondary site to mirror any changes in the primary data center.

With virtualization it’s possible to replicate asymmetrically — that is, without having to provide a matching host at the disaster recovery site. VM images can be restored to any server that supports your hypervisor. This portability also makes it possible to shift VMs to another machine while maintenance is performed, essentially eliminating planned downtime.

Creating a More Agile IT Environment

Organizations are placing tremendous demands on their IT infrastructures as they look to both lower costs and drive new business. IT managers are under pressure to increase service levels and deliver new and innovative services — with the same staff and within the same budget.

Virtualization accelerates application rollouts and reduces the risk associated with application trials. While it generally takes days or weeks to purchase and deploy a server, a VM can be set up in a few minutes. That makes it easy for organizations to test new software and eliminates the cost of adding new hardware for an application that may not be used.

Author: Rahi Systems

Rahi Systems is a Global IT Solutions Provider. We are uniquely capable of combining data center, IT, and audio/video solutions to create an integrated environment that drives efficiencies, enhances customer service, and creates competitive advantages. We offer a full suite of products in physical infrastructure, storage, compute, networking, power and cooling, and audio/video. Also, Rahi offers professional and managed services to aid customers in logistics, delivery, set-up, and ongoing support of their technology solutions.