The latest innovation in the IT industry is virtualization, everyone seems to be talking about, researching it on the internet and looking into ways that can help install virtualization in their offices. Now, why is that? What is the sudden hype all about? For people who are new to this concept let me start from scratch- virtualization provides a computer environment for multiple virtual machines to exist and work on single computer hardware. Sounds interesting, right? To be honest it is not interesting but also very effective and helpful, the idea of virtualization has appealed to hundreds of not only large firms but even small and medium businesses. If you are thinking about transforming your office to virtual work environment but are still confused about it here are 15 reasons that will convince you to put your thoughts to action.

1. Virtualization will limit the CPU usage, memory and storage of the “virtual machines” and permit one operating system to travel from one machine to another. The virtual machines are in incased into files which are copied and saved to transfer to the other virtual machine, this form of transferring reduces the problem of zero downtime and provides restricted workload consolidation.
2. Virtualization reduces the amount of power consumption which in turn leads to lower electricity bills hence increasing savings.
3. Disaster recovery through simplified solutions.
4. Virtualization enables you to run Windows, Solaris, Linux and Netware operating systems and applications simultaneously on a single computer.
5. The CPU usages tends to increase from 5-15% to 60-80%
6. Difficulties such as reconfiguration arise when old outdated hardware needs to be replaced with new one but virtualization allows you to avoid these problems.
7. Virtualization is perfect for a testing and training environment because it can imprison the complete state of a virtual machine and instantly bounce back to that configuration.
8. Virtualization allows you to implement and maintain a centralized management of IT department.
9. No specialized equipment is required to run a “virtual machine” , all you need is the regular x86 server.
10. All physical host hardware can be accessed easily through virtual machinery.
11. Re-host legacy operating systems, Windows NT server 4.0 and Windows 2000 on new hardware and operating system
12. Improvements in administration through assigning multiple virtual machines to work in a group, the administrator can then power on and off, stop and continue as a single object.
13. A chance to simulate hardware; it can mount an ISO file as a CD-ROM and vmdk files as hard disks.
14. It can organize network adaptor drivers to employee NAT through the host machine as compared to bridging which would call for an IP address for each machine on the network.
15. Facility of testing live CD’s; you don’t need to burn them or restart the computer.