Why is virtualization important?

By using virtualization, you can interact with any hardware resource with greater flexibility. Physical servers consume electricity, take up storage space, and need maintenance. You are often limited by physical proximity and network design if you want to access them. Virtualization removes all these limitations by abstracting physical hardware functionality into software. You can manage, maintain, and use your hardware infrastructure like an application on the web.

Virtualization example

Consider a company that needs servers for three functions:

• Store business email securely 
• Run a customer-facing application 
• Run internal business applications

Each of these functions has different configuration requirements:

• The email application requires more storage capacity and a Windows operating system. 
• The customer-facing application requires a Linux operating system and high processing power to handle large volumes of website traffic. 
• The internal business application requires iOS and more internal memory (RAM).

To meet these requirements, the company sets up three different dedicated physical servers for each application. The company must make a high initial investment and perform ongoing maintenance and upgrades for one machine at a time. The company also cannot optimize its computing capacity. It pays 100% of the servers’ maintenance costs but uses only a fraction of their storage and processing capacities.

Efficient hardware use

With virtualization, the company creates three digital servers, or virtual machines, on a single physical server. It specifies the operating system requirements for the virtual machines and can use them like the physical servers. However, the company now has less hardware and fewer related expenses.

Infrastructure as a service

The company can go one step further and use a cloud instance or virtual machine from a cloud computing provider such as AWS. AWS manages all the underlying hardware, and the company can request server resources with varying configurations. All the applications run on these virtual servers without the users noticing any difference. Server management also becomes easier for the company’s IT team.

What are the benefits of virtualization?

Efficient resource use

Virtualization improves hardware resources used in your data center. For example, instead of running one server on one computer system, you can create a virtual server pool on the same computer system by using and returning servers to the pool as required. Having fewer underlying physical servers frees up space in your data center and saves money on electricity, generators, and cooling appliances.

Automated IT management

Now that physical computers are virtual, you can manage them by using software tools. Administrators create deployment and configuration programs to define virtual machine templates. You can duplicate your infrastructure repeatedly and consistently and avoid error-prone manual configurations.

Faster disaster recovery

When events such as natural disasters or cyberattacks negatively affect business operations, regaining access to IT infrastructure and replacing or fixing a physical server can take hours or even days. By contrast, the process takes minutes with virtualized environments. This prompt response significantly improves resiliency and facilitates business continuity so that operations can continue as scheduled.

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