Advancements in Virtualization Creating New Opportunities for Companies, Virtualization Software Critical to Success

One of the costliest expenses incurred by companies today relates to the technology they utilize to keep their business running. While popular belief may suggest that computers and servers are pricey and there is simply no way around that the reality is these machines don’t represent the real expense that companies endure. That real expense comes from a company’s dependence on an old way of doing things, a reliance on technology that no longer provides the benefits that it once offered.

There is a certain comfort level that some companies have with their technology and rather than explore new opportunities for more efficient and productive ways of doing things they remain committed to what they know and this commitment can be costly.

A perfect example of this is the multiple server environment that many companies still utilize to manage their information. At one time this approach to information management represented a dramatic improvement but in today’s business world it is little more than a financial drain on a company’s resources and the longer they remain committed to this system the greater the expense they suffer.

Of course no company can continue to suffer losses and eventually the companies that hold firm to their multiple server environment will find themselves in a position where it is no longer possible to continue operations. That’s just the reality of the situation and a closer look at the costs associated with multiple server environments make this reality clearer.

Among the most significant costs associated with a multiple server environment is the time it costs IT admins to maintain and troubleshoot. In most cases these IT admins spend, on a conservative side, half their time just trying to keep the multiple server environment running smoothly. This takes so much time because companies are placing a single operating system or application on each server meaning IT has to address each of the server’s needs individually. Because of this IT admins are spending a large part of their day completing basic tasks like updates, archiving, recoveries and backups.

Not only does placing a single operating system or application on each server cost time it wastes space, and a lot of it. The majority of servers that host a single operating system or application are using just a fraction of their storage capacity, simply put they are underutilized. There is obviously a monetary cost in all of this as companies are purchasing more servers than they need and then paying to keep those unnecessary servers running.

With so much attention dedicated to just keeping everything running IT admins have little time to concentrate on innovation and development, an area that is absolutely essential to the growth of a business. This approach to business can paralyze a company and if you’re not moving forward in business then you’re being passed by your competitors.

All of this is said as a way to highlight the advancement of virtualization as the technological advancement that is reshaping how companies manage their information. Virtualization allow a company to place all of their operating systems, applications and other information on one single physical machine and that information can then be accessed by a number of virtual computers. These virtual computers share the resources of the physical machine, which allows them to run different operating systems and applications at different times.

Right off the bat a virtualization infrastructure eliminates the costs associated with just powering up the multiple server environment and the costs associated with purchasing those servers and keeping them maintained. In the tight financial climate we are now in this could be the difference between success and failure.

IT admins love virtualization for the simple fact that those basic tasks that took so long in the multiple server environment can be completed in a fraction of the time because all of the information is on one physical machine, they no longer have to move from one server to the next. Ultimately this gives them the opportunity to focus on the areas that will define the future of a company, innovation and development.

Because virtualization platforms are a tool to improving how companies operate it must be maintained if it is to provide all of the benefits. Ignoring or overlooking the needs of a virtualization infrastructure can lead to I/O bandwidth bottlenecks due to accelerated fragmentation on virtual platforms, virtual machine competition for shared I/O resources not effectively being prioritized across the platform, and virtual disks set to dynamically grow do not resize when data is deleted, resulting in free space being wasted.

These can be serious problems for any virtualization infrastructure but prevention is simple, all it really takes is the installation of virtualization software. By taking the precautionary step of installing virtualization software like V-locity from Diskeeper Corporation a company can eliminate the bottleneck issue by creating a faster and more efficient computing platform for new consolidation and provisioning initiatives without the need to add additional hardware, eliminate competition for shared I/O resources by coordinating resource usage, and solve the virtual disk “bloat” problem by compacting the virtual disk, thereby preventing waste and allowing IT managers to better allocate their virtual storage resources.

The opportunities that virtualization offers a company are numerous but a company will only capitalize on them if they ensure that their platforms are working at their peak level. Installing virtualization software like V-locity, which act as a virtual platform disk optimizer, delivering invisible background optimization which in turn improves the functionality and operability of the virtualization infrastructure, ensures that those opportunities remain in place.