Many IT companies have servers that are only being used at a small fraction of their full capacity. This is usually because the physical server is being used only for one application. Most of the time, this is an inefficient way to do things because there is an extra capacity that isn't being used. This makes operating costs and IT costs go up.

This article will explain what virtualization is and what its main components are. It will also talk about five of the many benefits your organization could get from virtualization:

What Exactly Is Virtualization?

Virtualization creates an abstraction layer over physical hardware using the software. It accomplishes this by establishing a virtual compute system, also known as virtual machines (VMs). Organizations can use this to run multiple virtual computers, operating systems, and applications on a single physical server, effectively partitioning it into multiple virtual servers. 

Benefits of Virtualization

Virtualizing your environment can boost scalability while decreasing costs. The following are just a few of the many advantages that virtualization can provide for your organization:

1. Reduce your IT costs.

Using a non-virtualized environment can be unproductive because when the application is not being used on the server, the computer is idle and cannot be used for other applications. When an environment is virtualized, a single physical server is transformed into many virtual machines. Even though they are hosted on the same physical server, these virtual machines can run different operating systems and apps.

Consolidating applications onto virtualized environments is a more premium approach because you will be able to serve fewer physical customers, allowing you to spend significantly less money on servers and save your organization money.

2. Improving resilience and reducing downtime in disaster recovery situations

When a physical server is damaged, someone is responsible for replacing or repairing it, which could take hours or even days. It is simple to provision and deploys a virtualized environment, allowing you to replicate or clone the affected virtual machine. Instead of taking hours to provision and set up a new physical server, the recovery process would only take a few minutes. This would make the environment much more resilient and improve business continuity.

3. Boost efficiency and productivity.

Your IT teams will be able to spend a little time maintaining physical hardware and IT infrastructure if you have fewer servers. Instead of going through the laborious and time-consuming process of applying updates server-by-server, you'll be able to install, update, and maintain the environment across all VMs in the virtual environment on the server. Less time spent on environmental upkeep improves your team's efficiency and productivity.

4. DevOps and control independence

Your developers can quickly spin up a virtual machine without affecting the production environment because the virtualized environment is segmented into virtual machines. This is ideal for development and testing because the developer can rapidly clone the virtual machine and run a test on it.

5. Make an effort to be more environmentally friendly 

If you can reduce the number of physical servers you use, you will be able to reduce the amount of power consumed. This has two environmental advantages:

• It lowers the company's expenses, which can then be reinvested elsewhere.
• It lowers the data center's carbon footprint.

The Walker Group provides a comprehensive set of cloud-based virtualization solutions, ranging from public cloud services to private and hybrid cloud offerings.