What is Virtualization? And How Does it Reduce IT Costs?

Virtualization technology has been around since the heyday of the mainframe era – the period of massive back-office computing rooms.  However, virtualization has gained increasing popularity over the last few years as companies seek to enhance their return on investment (ROI) from computing hardware while decreasing associated costs such as data center power, cooling and support costs.

By leveraging virtualization, businesses reduce IT costs associated with complex computing environments.  Vmware, the virtualization powerhouse, describes it as such…

“Virtualization essentially lets one computer do the job of multiple computers by sharing the resources of a single computer across multiple environments. Virtual servers and virtual desktops let you host multiple operating systems and multiple applications locally and in remote locations, freeing you from physical and geographical limitations. In addition to energy savings and lower capital expenses due to more efficient use of your hardware resources, you get high availability of resources, better desktop management, increased security and improved disaster recovery processes.”

Virtualization transforms hardware – including the CPU, RAM, hard disk and network controller – into software, creating a virtual machine running its own operating system and applications like a personal computer.reduce-costs

The introduction of virtualization technology presents a number of opportunities for driving capital and operational efficiency beyond the benefit of safely hosting different server roles on one piece of hardware.  3coast harnesses the power of virtualization to better manage IT capacity, provide better service levels and streamline IT processes by leveraging the VMware virtualization solution.

Dramatic benefits of virtualization technologies include:

  • Increased utilization rates for servers (A 60-80% utilization rate versus 5-15% in non-virtualized hardware)
  • Cost savings of more than $3,000 annually for every workload virtualized
  • Ability to provision new applications in minutes instead of days or weeks
  • An 85% improvement in recovery time from unplanned downtime
  • Faster testing of patches and other critical updates

By disconnecting the software environment from its underlying hardware infrastructure, virtualization aggregates multiple servers, storage infrastructure and networks into shared pools of resources, which can be delivered dynamically, securely and reliably to applications as needed. This pioneering approach enables organizations to build computing infrastructures with high levels of utilization, availability, automation and flexibility using building blocks of powerful servers.

Comparison of “Static Computing” vs. “Virtual Computing”:

Static Computing

Virtual Computing

User interface tied to the same machine where the OS and applications are running Virtual Presentation:
User interface separated from application/OS
Applications installed on specific hardware and operating systems Virtual Application:
Any application on any computer on-demand
Operating systems assigned to specific hardware Virtual Operating System:
Can be assigned to any hardware
Storage assigned to specific locations Virtual Storage:
Storage and backup on the network
Network assigned to specific locations Virtual Network:
Localizing dispersed resources

Looking for someone to help manage your virtualization initiatives…3coast can help!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.