Virtualization has played a key role in minimizing data center infrastructure, capital expenditure and bringing in automation of computer network nodes.

Key benefits that Enterprise IT teams derive from Virtualization include:

• Less Downtime: Virtualization makes enterprise infrastructure deployment and management much easier. Within a virtualized environment, it becomes easier to migrate live workloads, improve fault tolerance with reduced risks of sudden downtime. Virtual machines are comparatively easier to transfer and build in the case of a downtime.
• Reduced IT infrastructure: Virtualization results in consolidation of the IT infrastructure by reducing the number of servers for different workloads. Simulated machines on a lesser number of servers provide more efficiency and can be configured to run multiple workloads on single machines without affecting performance. In the traditional IT environment, applications are run on physical servers and in most cases they don’t end up using the server resources fully. These applications can be looked towards as possible virtualization candidates.
• Enhanced analytics: Analyzing virtual networks for maintenance and performance activities becomes quite easier. Even for BI initiatives, it is easier to crawl the virtual network for data and insights as compared to scanning workloads on physical servers.
• Underlying requirement for Cloud: It is common to confuse virtualization and cloud as similar technology terms. In reality, virtualization constitutes the underlying software, hardware and the components required to build a cloud offering. Cloud, in essence, is the set of services being produced on the basis of a virtualized IT environment.

Reduced downtime, consolidated IT infrastructure and enhanced analytics are big benefits which highlight the usefulness of virtualization in an enterprise IT setup.