Virtual systems are software-based simulations of computer systems that operate on the top of physical hardware. They offer a number of benefits for your business including IT efficiency along with cost savings and security.
Virtual machines are great for testing new software, deploy Wikis or Jabber IM services and also create backup images of your current system for faster recovery in case of a natural disaster. Virtual machines can be replicated or migrated to other physical servers in high availability configurations, which can reduce downtime.
The capability to virtualize multiple systems allows for significant reduction in server hardware, energy and maintenance costs. IT teams are able to spend less time on maintenance tasks, such as the installation of software updates, since the entire virtual infrastructure is controlled by a centralized platform. This efficiency boost allows your team to focus on strategic projects that improve the performance of your business.
Improved Data Security & Disaster Recovery
VMs are hardware-independent, meaning that they can be moved from one physical server to another just as easily as moving files on your desktop or laptop. This is beneficial in situations when the creator of an older piece of software ceases business or is no longer supported by the original manufacturer of the equipment.
The type of hypervisor used in a virtual environment can make or break the effectiveness of its management. A hypervisor based on bare metal, like VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V, provides more control and independence from the host operating system. On the other one hand, a hypervisor hosted like KVM (built into the Linux kernel) is able to pass VM requests through the host OS strategies for efficient online board meetings to process which could reduce VM performance.
