Many have heard of server virtualization and wonder if it is a new technology for every business to adopt. This article will explain what it is and hopefully help business owners and managers when they are ready to talk to the IT person. 

Green computing- virtual servers reduce the use of hardware, physical space and electricity substantially.  A virtual server is one that lives in a physical server in parallel with one or more other virtual servers.  A virtual server functions as if it is a physical server.  The idea of having multiple virtual servers came about when CPU has more cores, memory has more gigabytes and hard disks have more terabytes.

Fast recovery- a virtual server can be recovered in seconds instead of minutes in the most favourable scenario.  We can create a clone copy of a server as another virtual server in the same physical server.  In case the online server corrupts due to virus or testing, we can copy the clone over in a fresh state and start again. 

Portability across physical servers- this capability addresses the failure of the physical server as well as reusing a virtual server in another physical server.  This capability is not commonly available at this stage.

Benefits of server virtualizations are obvious for organizations with many servers and not quite obvious for small businesses.  Putting all our eggs in one basket is one consideration.  The cost of deploying is another.  If you are confused or have different ideas, feel free to contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to discuss