"We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas."
~Michael Crichton, Author
 Server virtualization is hot, very hot. It's been estimated that within the next 4 years there will be more virtual servers than physical servers. Through the use of virtualization technology organizations of all sizes are reducing not only capital investments (purchases of hardware & software) but operating investments as well (energy costs, reducing time to deploy and manage servers). Many of you know this already but if you haven't started moving forward with virtualization you may want to put virtualization on the top of your 2012 To Do list. In a broad sense there isn't another technology currently available today that can improve your IT operations, cut costs and give you higher availability more than virtualization can.
Popular Choices (listed alphabetically)
Free Editions
Most virtualization technology companies offer free versions of their software, at the very least for trial purposes. In some cases you may find that the free version is more than suitable for your needs, saving you money, but even if it isn't the free versions are great to get your feet wet with the technology.
Pay Editions
Pay versions have more features like easy to use graphical user interfaces (instead of just command line), the ability to move virtual machines between physical hosts and include technical support. Pay editions from the different developers can range widely in price, so check out two or three before you settle on one. You may find that one you weren't considering is perfectly suitable for a much lower price.
Common Virtualization Uses and Benefits:
- Consolidation - Moving multiple physical servers to run on fewer physical servers running virtual machine technology.
- Utilization - Most physical servers are rarely utilized to their maximum, or even close. Many servers run less than 10% of their ability. Through the use of virtual technology you can run multiple servers virtually on a single physical server to better utilize the available hardware. Through priority settings you can ensure that virtual servers running more critical servers run at a higher levels of speed during peak usage periods when resources on the physical system may be running low.
- Green IT - Less physical machines, less power, less cooling, less hardware to buy, less hardware to dispose of. virtualization is one of the best ways to make your IT operations more Green friendly. You can literally go from dozens of physical servers to two or three physical servers.
- Time Savings - Instead of setting up physical machines through hands on racking and stacking, connecting and deploying, simply open up your virtualization hypervisor to start up a virtual machine in minutes.
- $$$ Savings - Less hardware to purchase, power, cool, install, and IT administer = less $$$ spent.
 Partners Data Systems specializes in data storage and backup for virtualized environments. Let us know how we can help you take advantage of virtualization technology for your organization.
~Your Partners at Partners Data Systems
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