What is it?
Virtualisation is the running of software within a “virtual” or simulated hardware environment. Virtual environments are created when operating systems and desktop applications are emulated across physical hardware. When software is virtualised, you can run several applications and operating systems on a single physical server.
As an analogy - it is the equivalent of four people driving to work in their individual cars, despite living next door to each other. That is it’s wasteful, uneconomic and an inefficient use of resources.

Why should you consider it?
Lower capital expenditure on Hardware, lower associated Maintenance Costs, lower energy costs, lower building costs (reduced floor space requirements), increased (inbuilt) contingency with regard to Disaster Recovery, more efficient back-up processes, less staff required to configure and support. It’s probably easier to question why you shouldn’t consider Virtualisation as an approach to reducing tangible cost within your organisation.

Probably the easiest place to start here is to understand the size of your business. Not just the number of employees, or offices — but the number of Servers and associated applications. Are the applications that your business is running legacy based—specific to your business? Are you spending a fortune on licensing multiple physical servers?

How can we help?
Sometimes virtualisation can offer a niche solution to a specific problem i.e. The hosting of multiple legacy applications. Or perhaps business continuity critical for your business - virtualisation offers increased up-time. Of course, less physical servers typically means a much reduced carbon footprint. Let Softwerx help you understand where virtualisation can make a contribution to your business’.

In 2009, there were 5.8 million virtualized servers; Gartner predicts that number to rise tenfold by 2012.