Companies that chose to shift from traditional to a virtual server environments can expect to enjoy numerous positive long-term results, including the following five key benefits of server virtualization.
1. Scalability for business growth. Using virtual servers, your IT capabilities can keep pace with the demands of business expansion without substantial investments for hardware, firmware, and software. And additional capacity can be added almost instantaneously instead of after relatively slow in-house installation. In addition, server virtualization can allow for reallocation of existing resources to accommodate growth, as well as for the continued integration of legacy applications that use old operating systems.
2. Improved data recovery and protection. With in-house physical servers, duplication of data on remote locations for backup and disaster recovery purposes can be expensive and complicated. Server virtualization facilitates more-efficient synching and faster recovery.
3. Reduction of downtime due to server maintenance, troubleshooting, and upgrading. With the current pace of technological change, users are increasingly demanding in their expectations for data access and application performance. Backing up, working on, and upgrading internal servers means costly downtime and slowed performance. Virtual servers largely avoid this issue.
4. Improved productivity of IT personnel. Server virtualization reduces the number of physical machines that the IT department must maintain and manage—freeing up IT to focus on other valuable tasks. The centralized administration model that results from server virtualization simplifies life for the IT department. With IT professionals being able to manage across IT domains and work with management applications purpose-built for virtual environments, they have opportunities for career development, as well as for adding more value to your organization.
5. Lowered operational costs. We’ve already discussed the capital cost savings in IT investment to keep up with growth, but server virtualization also leads to significant operational savings, such as decreased labor, energy, and facility costs.
Key Points
- The long-term benefits of server virtualization make it an attractive option for many organizations.
- Server virtualization enables companies to add server capability on an as-needed basis rather than with upfront investment.
- Virtual servers can offer a less-expensive, more-reliable alternative for data security and storage.
- Increased productivity will result from streamlined IT processes, more-efficient use of IT staff, and the reduction of downtime and processing delays.
- Server virtualization lowers both capital and operational costs in the long term.