You're a business owner, and everywhere you go these days you hear people talking about "the-cloud-this" and "virtual-machines-that". But the conversation quickly turns to white noise as highly technical jibber-jabber comes into play. The goal of this article is to explain the benefits of virtualization to you in a way that's easy to understand.
What Is Virtualization?
I've got a dog. She's small as far as dogs go - only forty pounds or so - but she's got somehow got the ability to take up virtually the entire couch. She melts in all directions, pushing out against people with head, tail, four paws, and who knows how many elbows. She invokes the weight of a dying star so that even if you wanted to nudge her out of the way, you can't. She's completely immovable.
Perhaps you've had a similar experience.
This striking ability to take up far more room than should be possible isn't unlike what happens on traditional machines when an operating system is installed. The operating system (OS) needs access to limited resources like ports, and so despite the fact that it only takes up about 5-15% of the space on a machine, there's no room left for the addition of any others.
This means that any new operating system must be installed on a new machine. Not only that, but the new server must be approved by various purchasing employees, ordered, shipped, and installed. All of this can present enormous costs, and results once again in another machine that's only using 5-15% of its capacity.
Virtualization software serves to solve many of these problems. It works by creating a layer of what's called "abstraction" between the operating system and the physical machine. This abstraction allows for multiple "virtual machines" to be created on the same physical machine, each with whatever OS you like. It acts as a kind of curtain so that each OS can't tell it's sharing the machine.
This results in numerous benefits for your company, including...
Flexible Installation Options
Many people have an instinctual aversion to the idea of putting data in the "cloud". Clouds blow away, and what if your data just disappears?
It's a legitimate concern. Unlikely, but legitimate. The good news is that you don't necessarily need to ship out your data just to get access to the benefits of virtualization software. Software like the stuff created by Terminal.com can be installed on a private network giving you access to great virtualization features while maintaining control over your data.
Faster Access to Resources
With traditional non-virtualized servers when your employees need access to a new machine they often wait days or even weeks as paperwork is processed, parts are ordered, shipped, and installed.
This can delay projects, boost costs, and frustrate clients.
The beauty of virtualization is that as long as there's space on the physical machine a new virtual machine can be created with just the click of a button.
Need a brand new environment for an experimental project? Click a button. Want a perfect replica of your system so you can test potential changes? Click a button. How about an entire secure server dedicated to sharing critical documents amongst employees? You guessed it... Click a button.
Launch times for virtual machines are practically instantaneous - Terminal's is one of the fastest at just 5-10 seconds - which saves precious employee time, simplifies the production process, and helps ensure that a projects stay on schedule, ultimately serving your customers better.
Virtual Machines cost very little to add compare to their physical alternative. This saves lots of money on the front end of a project, and is making it possible for smaller companies to get access to machines once reserved for huge corporations with massive budgets.
Not only that, but because they're virtual they can be disposed of just as quickly when you no longer require them.
All of this is great news when your server system needs to grow. But it's absolutely indispensable when the system crashes:
Instant Recovery
Virtualization allows for better recovery as well.
Each virtual machine is kept isolated from the rest, so if one goes down the others don't necessarily follow.
Perhaps more importantly virtualization providers like Terminal allow you to make Snapshots of your virtual machines. Snapshots are perfect copies of your virtual machines and they make an excellent backup.
Snapshots can be made manually, or they can be automated. When they're made, they make a perfect working copy of the entire machine as it is at the moment that the Snapshot is created. That includes any and all data, users, programs, files, directories, and processes. Everything that's happening at the moment the Snapshot is made.
If a virtual machine crashes, all your system administrator (or designated geeky friend/relative) has to do is click one button to spin up a copy of the most recent Snapshot. Restoring doesn't take hours or days, but mere seconds.
They are like having a perfect recipe on hand, only better because they also remove the possibility of human error.
Bonus: Minimize Human Error
We're all human, and none of us is immune to a little mix-up now and then. But sometimes it can be catastrophic, as in the case of Knight Capital Group, who accidentally deployed new software incorrectly and lost ten-million dollars a minute for nearly an hour before they figured out the problem.
Conclusion
Don't be like Knight Capital Group.
Use technology to your advantage, save on operation and equipment costs, use your equipment's capacity, and put measures in place to ensure that if you fall, you're not down long. Consider virtualizing with Terminal.com today.