In today's day and age if you are running a business, no matter how big or small, it is highly likely that you use data centers for the storage and management of your data. Whether you have an in-house data center or you use a third-party data service provider, and you are looking for ways to make it more efficient, then the best way to achieve that is virtualization. Virtualization has a number of benefits that you can avail not just for the efficient management of your data but on a number of other facets as well.
Data center virtualization is the use of software in order to allow hardware to manage multiple systems all at the same time. The use of this technology came into the mainstream years ago, and it allowed the administrators to save a lot of cost by avoiding wastage of expensive equipment. With the high reliance of business on data, virtualization is the way to the future. Not keeping up the latest changes and innovations might result in your business becoming obsolete. Virtualization will not only help you in keeping up with your competitors but will also help you in a lot of other areas of your business. There are a lot of benefits of adopting virtualization, some of which are mentioned below:
Cost Cutting
Hardware is the most expensive part of setting up a data center. Virtualization will help you in cutting the cost of that. Less hardware means less maintenance cost, less consumption of electricity, and even lesser incidents of downtime. Less hardware equipment also means a reduced amount of heat buildup which is one the problem that every data center has to face, less equipment means less heat generation which automatically helps with a lot of issues that arise because of heat buildup.
Backup
Virtualization helps you keep a backup at all times. Not only can you take snapshots and backup of your virtual machines, but you can also take complete backups of all your virtual servers. It even allows you to take snapshots all day which ensures that you have a much more up-to-date information and data. In case of downtime, deploying a snapshot is quicker and easier instead of rebooting the whole server, and on the plus side, it can be done so fast that your users will hardly ever notice or experience any issue because of downtime.
Room for Experiment
With data centers, it is always difficult to test and experiment because one mistake can wipe it all, but will virtualization testing become very easy. In case of a mistake, you can just go back and use your last snapshot and move on from there as if the mistake never even happened. Another advantage is that you can easily isolate your testing environment from your users which means that they will still remain online while testing. It gives you room to work on your projects and then you can deploy them live when they are ready.
Quicker Recovery
Because of up to date snapshots and backup, recovery in case of disaster becomes very easy. All you need to do is deploy the latest snapshot, and your virtual machine will be up and running in no time. In case any disaster or accidents happens at the actual data center, it is very easy to move the virtual machines to a different location. This level of ease will make your disaster recovery plan easier to deploy with a much higher success rate.
Think Green
Virtualization also helps in reducing your company's carbon footprint. Not only will this give you a good reputation with your consumers but it is also the right thing to do. In today's day and age sustainable business models is the need of the hour. Virtualization will not only help you reduce your own costs but will also help you with your environmentally conscious customers.
Say Goodbye to Vendor Problems
The thing about virtualization is that it relies more on the software than the hardware. This means that you don’t have to be tied down to a particular vendor. With virtual machines, it doesn’t really matter what hardware they run on, so that means that you are not limited to a single vendor or a single server, or even a single platform.
How Will You Benefit From Cisco Trained Staff
To implement virtualization in your data center and to reap all its benefits, it is imperative that you hire qualified staff. IT technicians or Network Engineers that are trained and qualified will help you achieve your goals better, not only that but they will understand your business better and will be able to formulate a virtualization plan that is better suited to your needs.
Cisco training helps with mastering the technology and skills that are needed to practically implement the virtualization in your data center settings and operations. A network engineer with Cisco certification will help you with the performance and infrastructure of your data center. He will help you with transitioning to Software Defined Networking (SDN), achieving high performance and reduction of overall cost of your data center and its operations.
Cisco training for CCNP has a very hands-on approach of training with a combination of practical and theory lessons with the help of the company-grade software and equipment. Cisco now offers a Cisco Data Center Virtualization and Automation course which is best for your staff. This course will train your staff with all that there is to know about virtualization. Advanced Cisco training will make your staff capable of taking on any issue and problem that arise within your network and come up with its solution without letting it affect the end user.
Get in touch with one of our Cisco experts today to learn more about our courses.