Server virtualization is an increasingly popular method of enterprise web hosting, using a physical server that contains several software-based "servers" which act the same as physical machines without requiring separate hardware, power sources, etc. There are many reasons companies and organizations are investing in server virtualization. Some of the reasons are financially motivated, while others address technical concerns.
Advantages of Server Virtualization
At WSOL, server virtualization has many benefits. While it allows us to provide you a standard image for your hosting needs, it also conserves space, power, and costs, while simplifying the technical challenges we face. If several applications only use a small amount of processing power, the systems administrator can consolidate several physical machines into virtual machines running on one server. What’s more, the deployment of virtual servers can significantly decrease the need for physical space in our data centers.
With virtualization, our standard offerings include High Availability (HA), which in the physical world would normally have only been reserved for a company’s critical applications, due to the costs of keeping similar hardware idle for such systems. What this means for you is that if we have a server failure in our virtual environment, our servers will automatically re-allocate your virtual server to one of the other servers in our data center with minimal interruption and downtime.
How Can Server Virtualization Help Me?
Your virtual server is now a portable machine that can be reallocated memory or disk space with a few clicks of a mouse. If, for instance, you want to do a major upgrade, we can make an exact copy of your server in minutes and redeploy it for testing. With virtualization, we can even geographically move your server to another data center with minimal interruptions, along with many other benefits.
Virtualization in the data center has allowed WSOL to accomplish faster deployments, simplified backups, and easier migrations, and it allows us to do our part for the environment by going Greener. In the years ahead, it is hard to tell where virtualization is heading, but we have already seen great strides made over the past 10 to 15 years, so more exciting developments are surely on the horizon. Some think that even the infrastructure is heading to virtualization. We are already seeing this with software based switches and virtual appliances. Diagram will continue to invest and specialize in helping businesses achieve competitive advantage through superior integration of people, process, and virtual technology.
Do you have any questions about the benefits of virtualization? Please contact WSOL to speak to a hosting specialist.
