Provision Technologies LLP

Server virtualization on the x86 platform has been around now for more than a decade, yet many in the industry still consider it a "new" technology. Server virtualization has been a game-changing technology for IT, providing efficiencies and capabilities that just aren't possible when constrained within a physical world. And while server virtualization has continued to mature and advance itself, some virtualized organizations are still not taking full advantage of the offering -- stalling their virtual environment at something far less than the 100 percent virtualized data centre of the hard-core virtual administrator.There are many benefits to an IT organization or business when choosing to implement a server virtualization strategy.

If you are still waiting to get into the game, here are 10 great reasons why you should be jumping into the server virtualization game with both feet. These are tried and true benefits that have withstood the test of time (in this case, the last 10 years).1. Server consolidationBy collapsing physical servers into virtual servers and reducing the number of physical servers, your company will reap a tremendous savings in power and cooling costs. Additionally, you'll be able to reduce the datacenter footprint which can include diesel generator costs, UPS costs, network switch costs, rack space and floor space.2. Stop server sprawlBefore server virtualization, admins were forced to over-provision servers to ensure that they would meet user demand. With server virtualization, there is no more over-provisioning and you'll be able to perfectly size every virtual machine.3. Do more with lessWith a lagging economy, IT departments and admins are forced to do more with less. Server virtualization makes admins more efficient and agile, allowing us to do more with less and look like the heroes of the IT department.Virtualization at a glance4. Cost savingsNot only will your company save on the physical server hardware, powerand cooling of the servers that were consolidated, you'll also save on the time it used to take to administer physical servers. End users will be more productive thanks to less downtime and much more.5. Moving running virtual machinesTruly one of the more powerful features of server virtualization is the ability to move a running virtual machine from one host to another with no downtime. VMware's vMotion can do this for you and that feature makes other features like distributed resource scheduler (DRS) and distributed power management (DPM) possible.6. Increased uptimeFeatures like vMotion, storage vMotion (svMotion), DRS, and VMware high availability (VMHA) all result in virtualized servers being up and running so much more than those same servers that were running directly on physical hardware.7. Image-based backup and restoreBy being able to back up and restore entire virtual machines, you can much more quickly back up the VMs and put them back, if needed. Additionally, image-level backups make disaster recovery so much easier. Even more, only changed blocks need to be backed up and backups can be done in the middle of the day thanks to snapshot technology.8. Virtual labsBy being able to create a virtual lab (a group of VMs on a private virtual network), you can test vSphere, Exchange, Active Directory and much more. Previously, this would have been cost prohibitive with physical servers.9. Simplified disaster recoveryThanks to virtual machines being hardware-independent (not tied to a particular physical server) you can restore image-based backups on any hardware that is capable of running vSphere. Plus, software features like site recovery manager (SRM) automate the testing and failover when a disaster strikes.10. Allow us to move to the cloudBy virtualizing our servers and making them portable, we are now ready to move them to a cloud hosting company when that technology matures and when we feel comfortable with it.