If the answer is yes, then you need to ask yourself how do you go about getting the most out of this effort. In your branch offices, this question couldn’t be more important. Virtualization and the delivery of server consolidation is paramount in reducing IT complexity in SMB and branch office environments. Why? Because when you have limited IT resources, virtualizing your branch offices reduces the time spent on routine administrative tasks maintained by the central office.
The benefits of virtualization are still top of mind for CIOs this year. In fact, InformationWeek.com published an article last month highlighting a recent IDC study that identifies virtualization and server consolidation as the top priority for CIOs in 2012.
So how do you make the most of your investment? Solving the issue of limited IT resources for branch office support is only one of several benefits CIOs find with virtualization. A second important benefit is, of course, the associated cost savings. But there is even a third and more important issue here that resonates with our clients — achieving high availability.
High availability is a much needed solution in multi-site environments as it protects your virtualized IT environment against hardware and operating system failures. Users can continue accessing business critical applications and information even when one server fails.
Achieving High Availability
The costs of realizing high availability often casts a shadow over the savings generated from virtualization because the storage hardware required to achieve it can be very expensive and complicated. But with the virtualization of your branch offices, you gain the ability to virtualize your storage. In fact Storage Virtual Appliances (SVAs) enable users to achieve high availability without purchasing a SAN / NAS. Instead, you are able to leverage the internal disks of branch servers to create mirrored datastores which in turn are utilized by VMware vSphere to enable high availability.
Understanding all that an SVA provides to achieve high availability and make the most of your virtualization initiatives is exactly what we’ll be addressing in our upcoming Webinar at the end of the month.
Action Item: Register now for “How To Get the Most Out of Your Branch Office Virtualization Initiatives” on Tuesday, February 28th, 2012 and join our discussion.
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