One of the most significant barriers to achieving an efficient digital transformation in most companies is their current IT infrastructure. Their tech might be outdated, tough to integrate with new systems, or even less secure than the emerging systems. More often than not, older IT systems will expose your company to a variety of issues such as security breaches, data loss, inefficient workflow, and loss of company resources.
In a world where companies strive to do more with limited resources, virtualization is a valuable strategy to make the most out of the limited, but more efficient, technology that your company might invest in. In a nutshell, virtualization is the practice of building a virtual replica of your systems and is mostly used in replicating operating systems, servers and other storage devices. When implemented wisely, virtualization can help IT departments brave tough economic times while delivering quality services under a strict budget.
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Good reasons to embrace virtualization
1. It comes With Cost Benefits
The days when companies used to depend on different servers to house their operating systems have become nothing but a distant memory, as pointed out by Qbit – a company that offers managed IT services in Perth. In those days, this situation meant that the cost of running, cooling and generally maintaining the servers had to be multiplied by the number of servers that a company had.
With the complexity and expense of IT infrastructure increasing at alarming rates, IT professionals have been left with no other choice but to come up with counterintuitive ways to cut costs. Enter server consolidation through virtualization. Companies can now run multiple virtual machines in a single physical server. This cuts the cost while increasing productivity and efficiency.
2. Green IT
How much do you spend on power as a company? While you might not notice it, your power spending could be skyrocketing while the yielded results do not match the expected outcomes from your current energy consumption. In the long run, this results in the wastage of energy and a larger carbon footprint.
Using multiple servers can be the number one contributor to energy usage due to the needed power to run and cool each unit. By reducing the number of servers through virtualization, you get to reduce your electricity bills and the amount of harm you cause the environment, as noted by the CIO. Furthermore, most management software options for virtualized environments can help minimize server power usage while upholding efficiency.
3. Top-Notch Security
It can be challenging to cater to the security needs of multiple servers simultaneously. While you might try your best to uphold your policies throughout your IT infrastructure, there is a chance that you might leave some loopholes in one of the security systems. With server consolidation in virtualization, you have more control over the set security standards.
Introducing and testing new security practices becomes easy. On the other hand, troubleshooting downtime can be done within a fraction of the time it would normally take you. Data becomes less vulnerable as backing up and restoring it can be done quickly.
4. Improved Speed Across the Board
Virtualization makes it easy to improve the flexibility and efficiency under which you can set up your servers, desktops, and applications while increasing their responsiveness. You will spend limited time maintaining the servers and more time dealing with normal business processes. Through the use of virtualization, you can be flexible enough to adapt to changes in your business in real time. If you need to change your server capacity, there is always an option to scale up and out.
Conclusion
To successfully deploy virtualization strategies in your organization, you need a well-developed plan and to work with skilled technicians. If your current staff are not adept or prepared enough to handle such a project, outsourcing the task could be the right choice. You should definitely consider leveraging virtualization if you’re looking to give your business a competitive edge.
