Why is Virtual Computing Something I Need?

Overall there are many benefits to switching your servers and appliances to virtual designs:

• Shared Resources - Virtual Machines can run as many servers as they have RAM capacity for.  Processor and Disk resources are shared dynamically.
• Easier Maintenance - Virtual Machine migration allows for guest machines to be shuffled easily between physical systems with no impact to your users.
• Redundancy - If one Virtual Machine host fails guest systems can start up on another automatically, reducing downtime and improving customer experience.
• Load Balancing - Traffic can be balanced between hosts to ensure fast responses to customer requests.
• Reduced Cost - Virtualization lets you reduce the number of physical servers and with Cloud solutions saves you money when you use fewer resources.
• Scalability - Starting with a single host and moving up to tens, hundreds or more Virtual Computing can scale as you need it to.  This can be configured to occur automatically based on system load or something you respond to proactively with well-designed monitoring and alerting systems.

Cloud Hosting is the logical extension of Virtualized computing to large data centers managed by Cloud providers.

Cloud  Hosting for most customers is the way to go as it offers the following benefits:

• Global Presence - Host your services in multiple geographic regions quickly and easily, or isolate them to be nearest to your customer base.
• Scale Quickly - Additional compute power can be activated rapidly and automatically to respond to surges in customer traffic load.
• Pay As You Go - Only pay for what you use, set limits to ensure you don't get surprises when high-demand events occur.
• Fault Tolerance - Cloud-hosted services will be connected via multiple backbones and housed in secure and well-maintained data centers.
• Eliminate Equipment Maintenance - Cloud providers maintain physical hardware for you, not only do you eliminate the pain of responding to physical failures but you also never have to deal directly with equipment upgrades or the costs associated with them.

Should I use On-Premise Virtualization or a Hybrid On-Premise/Cloud Hosted option?

In some cases it makes sense to host your own environment, a few points to consider:

• Physical Control - With an on-premise solution you still control the hardware yourself.  This can have positives and negatives depending on your requirements and available resources.
• Ensure Regulatory Compliance - Guarantee the geographic safety of your data if regulations require it to be kept within Canada.
• More Secure - Private hardware means a more secure solution.  Attacks do exist that allow a compromised guest machine to access the memory and disk resources of another guest on the same hardware.
• Scalability Supported - Creating VM Hypervisor Clusters allow you to scale out your solution.  As you approach utilization levels more hardware can be added to grow as you need.
• Hybrid Cloud - Locally hosted Virtual platforms can be connected via VPN or direct fiber link to Cloud providers to enable a mixed approach.
• Flexible Design - With full control of your solution and in combination with a Cloud offering you can craft a custom service that strikes a balance between the benefits of both forms of virtualization.