Virtualization. You’ve probably heard about it by now, but what is it? It sounds scary, but it’s one of the best technological advances in the computer/business industry since the invention of the desktop.
Virtualization is just what it sounds like, taking a physical computer/server and turning it into a digital or ‘virtual’ one. Think of it as running a computer within a computer. This virtual computer shares the hardware resources of your physical computer, but is completely independent.
For the average computer user this isn’t life-changing technology, but for businesses, it has revolutionized all sorts of industries. All major companies who have servers utilize virtualization. It allows them to buy only a few physical machines, but run tens even hundreds of independent machines within themselves, on A HANDFUL OF MACHINES! This not only cuts back infrastructure costs drastically, but also increases performance and stability of the systems, since they don’t have to depend on the physical hardware to function.
At onIT, we are very much involved with virtualization, specifically with Microsoft’s hypervisor called Hyper-V. A hypervisor is a fancy name for a machine that runs virtual machines. We use Hyper-V in our office and some of our customers also use it.
If you are a business who wants to know more about virtualization and how you can leverage this great technology in your company, give us a shout. We’d love to talk with you.
