When companies consider virtualizing, they don’t always see the valuable benefits. It’s easy to get caught up in pessimism when it’s something unknown.

The increase of virtualization, however, gives good reason for companies to be optimistic about the technology. More businesses are using it and finding it to be a positive change. As InfoTech recently noted in a May 19, 2015 article, researchers are seeing a spike in virtualization:

Gartner market researchers report that the number of virtualized servers in data centers has noticeably increased over the last five years. Up to 50 percent of servers had been virtualized in many companies by the end of 2012. This percentage has risen to 70 percent in the last year, especially with the newly delivered systems.

Why are companies stampeding to virtualization? These eight benefits will help you understand why as you consider using the technology for your business.

1. It Makes Better Use of Your Hardware. Instead of purchasing multiple physical units to handle your servers, virtualization dramatically reduces the physical assets needed. In fact, it improves the utilization rates of your hardware from 15 percent to a whopping 80 percent. And that of course leads directly to benefit #2.

2. Cost Savings. It’s not just the better hardware utilization that saves money. As TechRepublic.com notes, the “lack of downtime, easier maintenance, [and] less electricity used” all add up to some serious savings.

3.  Product Testing. Setting up test environments is costly. Product testing requires high overhead. But, as WiseGeek.com notes, virtualization will allow you to “quickly and easily set up and maintain testing environments, and to rapidly restore testing environments to their original state when required.”

4. Better Redeployment. Virtualizing your data center (i.e. continually creating digital backups of all data) means it’s always ready to redeploy at any time, for any reason — and very quickly. The alternative — dealing with a physical server — is more time-consuming and costly. Virtual Strategy Magazine explains it this way: “…if a physical server dies, redeployment can take a lot of time because it is dependent on a vast array of factors that are not always in your control.”

Having digital backups also makes Backup Disaster Recovery (BDR) a walk in the park compared to the grueling alternative.

5. Separated Servers. Without virtualization, it’s usually one server that handles everything. But with virtualization you can dedicate single servers to one function — i.e. one for email, one for database management, one for web. This adds more power and flexibility to each area of your system. According to Webopedia: “…it lets each virtual server run its own operating system and each virtual server can also be independently rebooted of one another.”

6. Less Chance of a Server Room Meltdown. With less physical units in your server room, your chances of a server meltdown reduce. If you think this only happens to small, ill-equipped companies who forget to install a temperature control system, think again. In 2013, Microsoft’s servers overheated and caused a 16-hour shutdown of all Outlook and Hotmail email accounts.

7. More Choice with Vendors. Moving away from physical serves means you’re not forced to use a limited number of vendors. Virtualization makes your system much more compatible with a wide variety of vendors.

8. That Much Closer to Cloud Technology. Virtualization brings your company to the threshold of cloud computing. And, in case you need a refresher on the differences between the two, Business News Daily offers this quick, clean summary:

“…virtualization differs from cloud computing because virtualization is software that manipulates hardware, while cloud computing refers to a service that results from that manipulation…Cloud computing is the delivery of shared computing resources, software or data — as a service and on-demand through the Internet.”

Contact us to learn more about virtualization and how it might benefit your company. If you’re not sure if it is a good fit for your company, contact us for a free consultation to determine if now is a good time for your business to virtualize.