Why virtualisation you may ask?

In today's world purchasing and maintaining multiple servers in an environment has become extremely costly. Most businesses are looking for ways to reduce these costs while simultaneously increasing business productivity. Virtualisation is one of the very options to reducing these costs while maintaining efficiencies and improving productivity.

There are many benefits to an organisation or business when choosing to implement a server virtualisation strategy. With the technology we have today, there's no reason to remain idle and simply watch the parade on the sidelines.

Benefits

Save on physical machine costs: Server room equipment is expensive and must be upgraded often. Since virtualisation allows one physical machine to do the job of many, businesses will need to purchase less physical resources and can make the most of the assets they do have before it is time to upgrade again.

Save on storage costs: Again, since less physical machines are needed, less space is needed to dedicate to their storage. In fact, with the introduction of cloud computing, many businesses are now benefiting from having no servers on site. Plus, since servers may not be stored onsite, there is less risk of physical or virtual theft or tampering with company property.

Reduced energy bills: Servers, switches, and firewalls emit tremendous amounts of heat energy and must always be stored in a cool room so that they do not over heat. Overheating can cause equipment to go offline and cost the company high losses in productivity. With less physical machines emitting heat, the cooling needed to maintain server room temperature levels is decreased. In addition, energy costs as a whole are reduced as less physical equipment means less electricity is consumed. Maybe you aren't a "save the whales" or "tree hugging" type of person. That's cool. I don't wear the T-shirts either. However always bear in mind that virtualization saves power. If you spend less on power, you therefore also save money, and emit less CO2.

In the end virtualisation not only benefits larger organisations but small and medium businesses as well, even though most solutions are designed for much more corporate environments. There are many other affordable solutions that small businesses can utilise and take into consideration when deciding to take the virtualisation route.