Virtualization is a technology with which physical hardware can be separated into multiple, independently-functioning virtual units. With virtualization, a single physical server can be turned into multiple virtual servers. Each virtual server is given a non-fluctuating (though adjustable) amount of resources from the physical server (CPU, RAM, and HDD). Users of one virtual server—unless they’re authorized to—aren’t able to access another virtual server on the same physical server. Anything that a standalone physical server can host, a virtual sever can host, too—including applications, virtual hosted desktops, mailboxes, SharePoint platforms, databases, and websites.
Virtual servers are more efficient and cost-effective than non-virtualized servers. Non-virtualized servers can typically host only a single IT solution at a time. Most businesses will therefore have to purchase a physical server for each one of their applications, virtual hosted desktops, mailboxes, databases, and websites. Though most IT solutions are used only occasionally and by only a few users, non-virtualized servers, because of their inflexibility, have to able to support the maximum amount of users, processing power, and storage capacity at all times. While this keeps non-virtualized servers from being overloaded, it also makes them extremely inefficient: at any given time, only 5% of the resources of the average non-virtualized server are being used.
A virtualized server, meanwhile, can host multiple IT solutions at once, and has a maximum server utilization rate of 80%. Its ability to support multiple hosted solutions at the same time reduces the number of physical servers that a company has to purchase or rent.
Virtualization doesn’t just make physical servers more efficient, however; it also makes them more flexible. For example, if it turns out that of two equivalently-sized IT solutions being hosted on a virtualized server one is being utilized twice as often, the server’s administrator can shift the unused resources of the less popular IT solution to the more popular one. The expansion of an IT solution isn’t limited to the confines of a single virtualized server, however. That’s because virtualization not only makes it possible to divide a single physical server into multiple virtual servers; it also permits a single virtual server to take on the resources of multiple physical servers while continuing to function as an independent whole.
All of IronOrbit’s solutions—including our Hosted Desktops, Virtual Hosted Desktops, Desktop Hosting, Hosted Applications, and Managed Hosted Servers—are hosted on virtualized servers. We use virtualization to maintain our low costs and rapid scalability. Sign up for virtualized IT solutions such as Hosted Desktops and Virtual Hosted Desktops by contacting a helpful IronOrbit sales representative today!