Advantages of Virtualized Data Centers
Most small and medium-sized business enterprises that have dipped their toes into the waters of virtualization have done so with a cautious optimism, limiting their virtualized operations to specific functions while the enterprise gained more confidence in the technology. Now that cloud computing and virtualization has proven itself in key ways to be reliable and robust, companies are increasingly seeking to move their data centers onto full virtualization. Key benefits of such a move include lower costs and increased levels of efficiency, but these are rather vague terms. It is helpful for enterprises to understand in more detail how virtualization is able to offer these benefits.
How Virtualization Improves Data Centers
One way in which virtualized data centers reduce costs while improving efficiencies rests with the system consolidation they bring to an enterprise. Virtualized data centers can take advantage of shared storage locations so that every terabyte of space can be fully used rather than sitting partially empty due to allocation issues. This in turn leads to a reduced requirement for both physical and virtualized space.
Like dominoes lined up to knock each other over, each benefit of virtualization tends to lead quite logically to another. Just as shared storage means less total storage needed, so too do these reduced storage needs cause a reduction in power consumption. The trend also causes applications to load more quickly since there is less "bloat" in the virtual pipeline.
These benefits can be realized as part of a managed program model implemented by an IT company with expertise in virtualization.