Virtualisation dramatically simplifies your IT infrastructure by making it more efficient and easier to manage.

Virtualisation allows businesses to deploy services and applications as and when required without any real impact on their day to day operations. The main business benefit of virtualization is the massive cost savings it brings. Typically businesses that deploy virtualisation technology experience a 50 – 70% reduction on overall IT expenditure.

The main types of virtualisation

Hardware Virtualisation

This is the most common type of virtualisation used by businesses. Hardware virtualisation is where the physical hardware is virtualized allowing for multiple virtual servers which may run different OS and applications simultaneously on the same hardware.

Desktop Virtualisation

Similar to hardware virtualisation – desktop virtualisation separates the logical desktop environment from the physical machine. This means that businesses do not have to invest in powerful client machines (thick clients) rather they can invest in less powerful less expensive machines (thin clients) as the processing work is done within a host computer (i.e. server computer) capable of hosting multiple virtual machines at the same time.

Other benefits of Virtualisation:

• Reduction in total cost of ownership as businesses need fewer servers and client computers to run their applications
• Reduction in energy costs
• Better resource utilization
• Less time spent maintaining servers – patch management and upgrades become easier
• Easier to add capacity as the business grows
• Easier to support and manage virtual desktops and server