It has been a real challenge for businesses to reduce their IT spend, whilst at the same time keeping up to date with technology and key competitors, as well as offering a higher level of service to customers. So, can Virtualisation help? Many businesses are unsure of the facts, what it is, and how it can make real savings.
What is Virtualisation?
In a nutshell, virtualisation means replacing physical hardware with software. Traditionally, companies have had to manage and maintain multiple servers that each have just one key function. This approach results in an average server utilization of just 10% to 15% of the total capacity and most single-purpose servers being idle 60% of the time - leading to significant, disproportionate energy and maintenance costs
Implementing a Virtualisation strategy allows businesses to consolidate servers by running multiple operating systems and programs at the same time on one physical server thus, rather than investing in and maintaining several under-utilised servers, each dedicated to a specific function, virtualisation allows those functions to be consolidated onto fewer, fully utilised servers.
How can Virtualisation benefit organisations?
Cost benefits
The reduction in the number of servers brings significant savings on hardware expenditure. This brings a reduction in IT management costs and also energy costs, not just from the servers themselves but from the air conditioning systems that companies use to maintain and prevent them from overheating.
Operational benefits
Aside from cost benefits, Virtualisation has significant operational benefits which can allow businesses to run more efficiently. For example, tasks such as back-ups are much simpler and take less time as repetitive tasks are considerably reduced. For businesses that have a need to run older operating systems for specific programs, virtualisation makes this possible.
Virtualisation allows centralised deployment and management of applications; this enables businesses to be more adaptable to changing business needs. The virtualised server environment is scalable so can handle additional infrastructure needs if and when required for expansion.
In conclusion, virtualisation is an effective way for medium sized businesses to save money by consolidating servers, reducing energy consumption, and allows businesses to run more efficiently.