Dare to dream

Successful businesses are usually those which dare to imagine how things could be. Innovators, ground breakers and market makers have one thing in common: they have a vision. They aren't content to do things as everyone else does them

The 'real' world

Picture the IT infrastructure of a typical small or medium-sized business. Perhaps your own. There will be printers, scanners and other peripherals of various types, network devices, and servers, desktops and laptops, each with their own operating system, application software and data.

For anything other than a very small network, the cost of deploying, updating, protecting and managing those servers, desktops and laptops, along with their data, and systems and application software is significant, to say the least.

Pipe dream?

Now picture a world in which applications and data are hosted on a highly secure, high performance central server, with users accessing them over high speed secure internet connections. Users can access their data and applications from wherever they are - at home, in the office or out on the road. They can connect through their desktop, laptop or mobile device.

Data, held centrally, is backed up on a daily basis. Applications and system software on the central server are maintained at the most appropriate revision level for the organisation, with licensing handled by the provider, removing the danger of an unexpected audit from the software vendor.

On the security front, when employees move on, their access to any of the organisation's data or applications can be removed instantly. The business can control who can open specific email attachments, and during what period. And with all data held and backed up centrally, the danger of data corruption, theft or other loss is significantly reduced.

In this new world, our small or medium-sized business no longer needs to concern itself with deploying, updating and managing application software on a plethora of desktops, laptops and mobile devices. It need no longer expend time and effort on maintaining a rigorous backup regime.

On the financial front, businesses operating in our new world can deploy desktops, laptops and mobile devices of lower specification - and therefore cost - than those required by a traditional IT infrastructure. Their need to make major capital expenditure on servers and application software is significantly reduced. Instead, they pay a straightforward monthly subscription charge - a revenue cost for tax purposes - set at a level determined by the number of users and the services they use.

Server and application virtualisation

So - pipe dreams? Until recently, yes. But now businesses, including smaller ones, are enjoying exactly these benefits, thanks to server and application virtualisation.

Server virtualisation allows a single physical server to be partitioned internally into a number of virtual servers. Application virtualisation allows a single instance of an application, running on a central server (which could be a virtual server) to be shared among a number of users, remote from the server.

These two technologies, coupled with secure, high-speed internet connections, have made it possible for the new world we've looked at to become reality.

By sharing resources, server virtualisation reduces power, cooling and physical space requirements, along with the effort required for maintenance, data protection and the administration of software updates.

Similarly, applications virtualisation delivers applications and data to users exactly as if they were running applications locally, and working with data stored locally, but reduces complexity and the need for local IT support resources.

Together, server and application virtualisation cuts costs, improves the organisation's tax position by shifting capital expenditure into revenue expenditure, improves operational agility by delivering applications and data to users wherever they are, and whatever device they are using, strengthens security and data protection, and removes the need for major financial commitments based on estimates of future IT usage.

Blue chip organisations have had the financial clout and technology resources to capitalise on these technologies for some time. Now smaller businesses can take advantage of them.

To find out more about virtualisation technologies and the ways in which they could benefit your business, call Perceptive Online on 01635 234100 or email info@perceptive-online.com.

Further reading:

March 2008

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