Is Virtualisation Right For Your Business?
In today’s competitive business world, companies are constantly looking for ways to improve the efficiency and availability of their operations and resources. However, when it comes to IT, many organisations are deploying servers that are running at a fraction of their capacity. This leads to an excess that is not being consumed, which can lead to higher operating costs.
Virtualising infrastructure enables you to decrease IT expenses while increasing the productivity, adaptability and performance of your existing resources. But what is virtualisation technology?
IT virtualisation is basically the foundation of cloud computing. It uses software to create an abstraction layer between software and hardware – in other words, between the storage, computing and network infrastructure and the operating systems and applications that use them. This creates a virtual system comprised of virtual machines (VM’s), which allow organisations to safely run several operating systems and applications on the same computer at the same time.
According to a study done by business technology news company ZDNet, over 49 per cent of Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) organisations have taken advantage of virtualisation technology’s multiple benefits. But is it right for your business? Here are the top 5 benefits of virtualisation that may help you decide.
Increased Speed
Virtualisation can increase efficiency with improved responsiveness because it allows you to set up applications, desktops and servers flexibly and rapidly. It’s also an effective way to leverage your hardware as virtualisation allows it to perform at optimal levels.
One of the other advantages of virtualisation is that can decrease the time you spend on maintenance by streamlining and automatically managing a range of tasks. With fewer servers, IT teams will spend less time on maintaining physical hardware. They can install, update and maintain the environment across all the devices on the server instead of going through the laborious process of applying updates server-by-server.
Virtualisation also drastically improves operational agility by allowing a quicker response time to accommodate your organisation’s ever-changing business needs. You simply scale up when you require extra capacity and scale back when you don’t!
Minimal Data Loss
Typically when an IT disasters or system crash affects a physical server, your IT team will be responsible for fixing or replacing it. This can take hours or even days, particularly if data recovery is involved via a traditional backup process.
Within a virtualised environment, it’s easy to deploy and provision, allowing your team to replicate or close the virtual machine that’s been affected.
The recovery process will also usually only take a few minutes as opposed to the hours it would take to provision and set up a new physical server, which means your data will be less vulnerable. The loss to data is also minimised, meaning the resiliency of your IT environment is enhanced and business continuity is improved.
Cost Effectiveness
Non-virtualised environments can often be inefficient, because when you’re not using applications on the server, it sits idly and isn’t used for other applications.
When you virtualise an environment, that single physical server transforms into many VM’s. These VM’s can have different operating systems and run different applications while still being hosted on the single physical server.
This means you’ll be cutting down on operating costs, including on staffing, power usage and maintenance, and spending less money on additional servers and new equipment, including the cost to install them.
Enhanced Security
Another one of the important benefits of virtualisation is the security that it offers. Consolidating your data centre ultimately provides you with more control, allowing you to manage all your security requirements from the one place. Virtualised servers can identify and isolate applications that are unstable or compromised, in order to avoid the spreading of any malicious or damaging elements like malware.
They can make it easier to create more cost-effective intrusion detection, protecting not just the server and the virtual machines but the entire network. They also allow easier monitoring by administrators in terms of viewing traffic and denying access to suspicious users. And a master image of the server can also be created, making it easier to determine if it is acting abnormally or against set parameters. Virtualisation can also give you a safer, virtual environment to test out new network components including software.
A Reduced Carbon Footprint
Another one of the great advantages of virtualisation technology is that it is more environmentally friendly. The daily power consumption of a typical office can be equivalent to the monthly power bill consumption of thousands of homes. Operating fewer servers lowers the demands on both power and cooling requirements, and therefore reduces businesses expenses.
E-waste is also reduced by the reduction of an organisation’s carbon footprint. And because less servers are needed, virtualisation can also result in an increased efficiency in resource management and space utilisation.
Need an IT specialist who is up to speed with the latest in server virtualisation software and network virtualisation technologies? Contact the team at Deployus today!