Q: I have heard about Virtualisation but why should I do it?

A: Small businesses face many of the same IT challenges as larger businesses, however they have limited budget and generally try to do more for less. More SMEs are now looking at a more strategic view for their IT and the longer-term efficiencies vs the old school of thought that their IT is doing its job today.

Virtualisation has become topical because of the costs savings, efficiencies and resilience it can give a business. You can virtualise Servers, Desktops and Applications, either hosted on premise or "in the cloud".

So what does it really mean? Many businesses are running legacy applications on a sprawling number of servers. Virtualising your network will lead to a reduction in the number of physical servers, costs in floor space, power and cooling requirements and ultimately reduce your IT Support costs. There are also the environmental, performance, management and business continuity aspects this technology gives.

Desktop virtualisation also allows you to be more cost effective through having all the PCs run on the server. This in turn makes the PC a thin client, which cost less to purchase and support but also allows you to recover more quickly in the event of a Disaster as you can provision the same services at a separate location(s) within minutes.

There are several providers of virtualisation technology, all offering free tools to analyse your IT environment that generate reports. These then need to be analysed by your IT partner as how best to virtualise your current IT network, if it is deemed appropriate. The analysis will look at savings gained, the TCO and ROI for up to 6 years and provide recommendations on implementing a virtualisation approach.

Overall by Virtualising your IT, it can help reduce costs, risks to the business and improve business continuity. It is an area seriously worth exploring with your IT Partner as it will give you much more insight into the mid to long term planning for your IT. Sales, Finance and HR Departments plan well in advance and IT should be no different.