This depends on your goals, but more times than not it is Yes - Absolutely!!
Virtualization has to be one of the fastest growing industry trends out there. It's a great way to help businesses reduce costs, provide better redundancy/up-time and maximize investment. The best part of all of this is that it works (when deployed properly)!. We have been involved in deployments of data-centers with 100's of servers, spanning dozen of racks into single racks with blade servers and VMware. To date, we have successfully deployed nearly 1,000 virtual machines.
The concept of virtualization may be confusing. Hopefully I can make it clear for you or at least make it an "eye opener" for you. Virtualization allows you to take a physical server (similar to that same server that sits in your server room, data-center or closet today) and install virtual servers on the physical server. Virtual servers run the same operating systems, support the same applications and can provide the same or better performance of "stand alone" physical servers.
The main benefit is that you no longer have to buy new servers to isolate/seperate each application from the rest from your network. You can consolidate and / or contain the number of physical servers that are required to power your network. In turn, you will reduce operating costs (power, deployment, real estate), capital costs (costs for new servers) and you can increase your up time/reduce downtime. Through virtualization, all of the server resources (CPU, Memory) can be pooled and shared with many virtual servers. Servers will be better utilized and you can allocate resources to servers that need it on "the fly".
Imagine deplyoing new servers in minutes instead of days. What if you could perform maintenance on hardware without any downtime? How about running a snapshot (backup) minutes before releasing new software to your network and then rolling back with a click of a mouse button if the installation doesn't go as planned.
Bottom line is that virtualization has evolved the industry over the last 12+ years. It has helped many of our valued clients grow their businesses, provide them with a competitive edge and improve their up time. Businesses large to small can benefit from virtualization. Feel free to drop me an email [email protected] if you have any questions or contact your Account Manager.
-JK