In the lexicon of Cloud computing, server virtualization fills the IaaS, infrastructure as a service, niche. Customers who opt to jettison their power- and space-hungry local servers essentially subscribe to outsourced server space. The expertise of professional IT providers, like Xecunet, who look after everything is just one advantage of server virtualization.
Server virtualization may be in your IT management future if you’re looking to phase out your aging server infrastructure and want the following five benefits:
1) Virtualization reduces hardware usage
Ask your IT people how much available storage space you use on each of your organization’s physical servers. Then find out if any of your servers sit idle with legacy applications that are used infrequently and which your IT people are afraid to access because no vendor supports them. You might be surprised to learn that you have a significant amount of wasted hard drive space and unused individual server capacity.
Moving to a virtual server can bring all your physical servers together, and:
- Reduce the size, or eliminate your data center or server room
- Employ fewer pieces of hardware
- Become less reliant on isolated, aging operating systems by leasing the latest Microsoft Software direct from Xecunet on a monthly basis. Options include Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Sharepoint, etc.
2) Virtualization can improve server performance
Uploading to a virtual server is cloning without the costs of buying the supporting physical server. This translates to quicker deployment without the hassles of physically connecting the server, installing the operating system and deploying the supported applications. Overall, these benefits translate to:
- Bypassing the grueling process of bringing a physical server online
- Saving the time, costs and additional space for the physical racks and wiring
- Quickly deploying and upgrading your vital data center support to keep pace with new technology
3. Reliable Disaster Recovery
Another term every manager should be familiar with is failover. If you have mission-critical software you need a backup that will immediately take over if the main operating system fails.
Server virtualization that utilizes Virtual Private Servers (VPS) from Xecunet means that your critical data is continuously and automatically backed up to a replication site. The best enterprise virtualization platforms, such as Xecunet’s, have the software systems that automate failover when disaster strikes and provides high-availability, fault-tolerant data storage.
The best virtualization failover is a backup system that:
- Restores your server infrastructure swiftly and safely is real disaster strikes
- Has another offsite location for additional redundancy
- Utilizes fault-tolerant storage solutions that ensure the integrity of your data
It’s just common sense: With virtualization, you use fewer servers and reduce electricity consumption and heat generation. One Energy Star online piece reports that:
“Decommissioning a single 1U rack server can annually save $500 in energy, $500 in operating system licenses, and $1,500 in hardware maintenance costs.”
5. A more productive IT staff
If you want to get your IT staff out of the nitty-gritty of troubleshooting and into core tasks of business automation, consider going the virtualization route. Again, it’s just common sense: If you have a few servers to look after and manage, your IT staff can be deployed more productively.
The Bottom Line…
The benefits of server virtualization in the context of IaaS are multiplied through the “scalable factor.” Opting for a VPS hosting upgrade as your business grows, without the worries of system performance and data safety, adds the flexibility to keep your business agile. You can continue to wait on new hardware and datacenter deployment, or, with VPS hosting, forge ahead with the tools you need to stay competitive.
For additional information about Xecunet’s VPS products, please contact us at 301-682-9972 or e-mail us using the contact form on this page. We look forward to speaking with you.