Hardware is expensive, this much is certain. When a small or medium-sized business is looking to get the most bang for buck from their technology investments, they have to consider hardware to be the most crucial part of the equation. One option that businesses can take advantage of today is to use virtualized environments. Whether these computing environments are hosted onsite or in the cloud, a business can extend the usefulness of their IT budget by utilizing them. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of virtualization on your business.

Business Computing is Shifting

There was a time, not too long ago, where there weren’t a lot of options when it came to business computing. The small business that wanted to expand its computing infrastructure would buy a server and use it for a dedicated purpose. This strategy gives the business the most control over their hardware, data, and applications, so for the business that has an onsite IT support team, it’s logical. 

It’s also very expensive. 

One of the main problems with this organizational computing strategy is that it doesn’t utilize the capacity of these servers. The servers are used for a specific purpose and that can leave a significant amount of resources unused. This underutilization is a wasted opportunity. By using virtualized environments, new hardware can be more effectively utilized, and therefore, can help control hardware costs. 

Here’s How Virtualization Works

Instead of running one server for every mission-critical application, you run several virtual machines on one server. Each virtual machine only uses the hardware resources that it needs, meaning that three or four servers can be consolidated into one. You will get the same performance out of one server with many virtual servers on it as you would get from multiple in-house servers. 

Pros of Virtualization

Outside of the admittedly hefty upfront cost of virtualization, the reduction in hardware costs you see down the road make the strategy a sound one for almost any business. Not only do you save money on buying servers, the environments are accessible from nearly any device. This means that you cut down on your workstation spend, and you can take full advantage of remote workers. All-in-all, businesses that commit to virtualization can save between 40-to-60 percent on their organizational hardware costs, and see reduced management, utility, and maintenance costs as well.

This also allows you to spend more time driving your business forward and less time managing it. Virtual servers can deploy new environments in minutes, expediting the process by a substantial amount. Virtualization also makes security and data redundancy much easier as your IT admins only need to work on one server rather than several, and back up one piece of hardware.

Your Company in the Cloud

Another consideration is hosting your virtual environments in a bigger virtual environment. Cloud computing is more affordable and secure than ever and companies have been paying attention. By using cloud offerings to extend the benefits of virtualization you’re effectively paying to host your company’s servers in the cloud. This can be even more cost effective than using virtualization on your own in-house servers, but it does remove some of the control you and your team have over your hardware. 

Either way, if you aren’t considering virtualization, you are probably wasting money. If you would like to learn more about virtualization for your business, contact the IT professionals at 415 IT at (415) 295-4898 today.