Museum of Surrey
June 28, 2022
Are you still using a peer-to-peer network?
If you haven’t set up a server, you probably are. Peer-to-peer networks are fine for smaller offices but can be limiting.
Servers make it easy to share files with only specified persons and departments. They make it possible to look at the same file no matter what device you’re using.
It could be you have a server but are looking for a less expensive solution. We are happy to announce that now there is.
Virtualization has reduced the need for bulky and expensive on-premise servers. Now you can pay a monthly subscription for virtual server and cloud services.
Before technology developed through hardware. Now that has changed and software is the way of the future. We all use cloud-based apps like Google Docs, Adobe, Salesforce, Google Docs, and DropBox in our everyday lives.
Microsoft, IBM, Citrix, and RedHat are some of the names making big marks in the virtualization industry.
Small businesses have more options of virtualization vendors than ever before.
Do you really want to spend all your time dealing with retrievals, attacks, updates, and patches?
Leave it to a vendor who has the expertise to protect you and your data. Then you can get back to the important work of running your business.
Choosing virtualization has immediate benefits for your business. You will save money, time, and energy, plus see enhanced security. Read on to learn more.
Virtual servers have a 7% increase in performance and up to 50% greater energy than physical servers. This is according to Gartner, a technology research advisory company. Physical servers only use 10-15% of their total CPU.
A single purpose virtual server can be made to multitask. Many servers can be turned into a single pool. Workload flexibility is greatly enhanced.
Virtual machines are faster because they have a built-in hypervisor CPU scheduler. It’s a machine learning tool that optimizes CPU use. It also uses fewer resources than a physical server.
Virtual servers still have a reputation of being too expensive. Erick Zeitbert of Virtualization Viewpoints ran an experiment to prove this wrong. He compared the costs of 2 basic HP servers with quad core processors: one physical and one virtual. There was less than a $500 cost difference between the two – plus the savings in energy!
The amount of data generated is growing every year. The speed of technology is also increasing.
It’s too expensive for businesses to understand, store, and analyze all their data. This is where cloud-based tools come in.
Cloud providers like IBM offer tools like machine learning and predictive analytics. Such tools help your business analyze and understand data. In the future, instant data updates will be standard and tools like these will be even more important.
If you were to buy and manage your own server, you would need a lot of time and resources. You would buy many bulky components that need to be interoperable. The server would have to work with the firewall, hard drives, ports, and so on.
Not to mention that each component might become obsolete in three year’s time and need to be replaced. You also need highly skilled administrators to apply patch deployment and do testing.
Check out this resource to learn more information on the benefits of virtual vs. physical servers.
Virtual server companies have artificial intelligence tools that can do all of the above. They also have automation tools and tech support. Fewer servers at your office mean the less time you spend on menial tasks like maintaining, backing up, archiving and recovering data.
Staff can shift their attention to more meaningful areas of the business. They won’t spend all their time responding to alerts. Your external provider will handle most of the monitoring and data recovery testing so you don’t have to.
Energy costs are rising and the price of office space is at a premium. Energy and space savings are welcome at any business.
We know that virtualization can result in up to 50% in energy savings. The move can seem redundant at first but the benefits (and savings) become clear over time.
With virtualization, different physical resources are moved into one virtual resource. This allows for more efficient management of resources, and lots of energy savings.
You can reduce headaches when you make the switch from on-premise to virtual servers.
Virtual servers increase security by saving money, improving efficiency, and decreasing downtime. These features are available through most cloud service providers.
Plus virtual servers have special security features. Virtual servers have sandboxing capability. They can isolate any unstable applications so they don’t affect the rest of the network, for example.
Server virtualization can also mask server resources. One server is broken up into smaller servers in many virtual environments. Hackers access physical servers and steal confidential records all the time. It is much harder when the records are spread across different servers.
Lastly, server virtualization creates images of the server so that it’s easier to tell if it’s acting normally, or if it’s not.
You won’t have to worry about downtime if one of your hosts goes belly up.
The Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G will transform business in ways we can’t imagine now. You want your business to be set up for the greatest connectivity, and that means being in the cloud.
Soon all data will be updated in real time. The goal is for data to come in one second and to be updated every other second. You want your business to be ready for when it happens.
Here are some best practices for when you make the virtual migration.
Make sure good back up procedures and rapid data recovery procedures are in place.
Virtual systems can still be vulnerable. Do not disregard the security of your virtual servers. Practice proper management and apply security patches for viruses and other threats.
Determine the exact needs of your organization’s security. Act against the proliferation of virtual machines and have a security policy in place. Security measures should be present in all your system architecture. This means each network, user, application, etc.
It is usually free to transfer your data into the cloud but costly to transfer it out. One piece of advice is to cache the data from your servers as this will reduce costs and the total data transfer.
Take each component into consideration when you are thinking of scaling up. Don’t forget to think about the host hardware, storage, and networks.
The question is not whether you want to move to go virtual or move to the cloud. The benefits of moving to the cloud are clear.
Virtualizing your servers is a multi-step process. IT service providers have the expertise to make it seamless.
Raxxos in Vancouver offers comprehensive IT services and solutions. We can help you virtualize your business and set up your new environment. Plus we take the confusion out of choosing local, private, or public clouds and help with data migration.
Click through our testimonials to find out what our clients say about working with us.
