Appliance Deployment Featured Article

In the appliance deployment field, there’s a strong argument to be made that moving apps into a virtual environment reduces their dependency on the underlying hardware, as well as providing increasing functionality and portability.

That argument is made by officials of NEI (News - Alert) in a recent blog post, who add that cloud computing can improve your company’s bottom line, enhancing customer service while allowing for a reduction in costs.

Okay, these are more obvious benefits of virtualization. Yes, it provides the scalability that allows your workload to “grow with grace,” in NEI’s felicitous phrasing. But there are other benefits you shouldn’t overlook.

First, virtualization is an opportunity for reassessment. Remember when CDs came out to replace vinyl albums, or iTunes came along to replace CDs? Moving to the cloud gives your IT department the excuse it needs to track how applications are used and the frequency of access, so they can decide which apps can be decommissioned to save costs.

Second, virtualization can standardize your business processes. “Processes with standards in place will be the most successful in the cloud,” NEI officials say, adding that “standardizing can help increase your efficiency and, in some cases, may reveal new revenue streams.”

Lastly, virtualization provides an option for disaster recovery. NEI officials note that there is a school of thought saying that the process will have applications not only for tasks like server virtualization, but also disaster recovery: “For example, during the move is a great time to decide how your organization will be notified if the cloud provider is affected by an outage.”

Overall, moving apps into a virtual environment is a smart move. Generally it gives you better performance and security and lets you cut costs. Just be sure you find a partner to help your business move forward with the latest trends, such as NEI.