Virtualization vs. Cloud Technology (for business): Spotting The Differences

Are virtualization and Cloud technology adequate for your business? Do you know the difference? Experts consider the word 'Cloud' as a generic term, while 'virtualization' is often mistaken for Cloud technology. Although the two are similar, they are not interchangeable and the difference is important enough to influence business decisions. Here is a guide to help demystify the technology behind the waffle.

What is virtualization?

In summary, virtualization is software that separates physical infrastructure to create different dedicated resources, essentially driving Cloud technology. Virtualization technology is called Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) or Virtual Administrator, separating the existing physical infrastructure environments.

"The virtualization of servers, workstations, storage, and other systems are independent of the level of physical hardware", said John Livesay, Vice President of Network Infrastructure at Infranet - a service provider. "'This is done by installing a hypervisor above the hardware level where the systems are installed."

How Is Virtualization Different From Cloud Technology?

Virtualization is a software that controls hardware. However, Cloud technology refers to a service resulting from this manipulation.

What Are The Benefits Of a Virtualized Cloud Environment?

To better understand the benefits of virtualization, examine the variance between public and private Clouds.

Private Cloud technology means that the customer possesses or rents the software and hardware provided by the consumer model. A lot of Cloud technologies allow users pay resources based on usage. That is, you will pay for resources as you move, while consuming from a supplier who provides these resources to multiple customers, often in a co-tenant scenario.

A private Cloud (in its virtualized environment) offers users the best of both worlds, with greater control and flexibility to manage their systems, whilst simultaneously providing the benefits of Cloud technology consumption.

On the other hand, a public Cloud is an open environment, created to meet the requirements of multiple users.

Unlike with virtualization, businesses can sustain and protect their 'fort', which offers the following advantages:

• Maximize Resources: Virtualization can reduce the number of physical systems you need to capture and you can enjoy more value from your servers. Most systems built in the traditional way are not fully optimized. Virtualization tolerates the proficient use of hardware.
• Multiple Systems: With virtualization, you can also run multiple types of applications and even run different operating systems for those applications on the same physical hardware.
• IT Budget Integration: When you use virtualization, the administration and all other requirements for managing your infrastructure remain a direct cost of IT operations.
• Speed: The speed responsiveness of a website is important. For example, when a user is looking a web designer in Birmingham and types in "web design Birmingham" on a search engine, they click on the first domain that catches their eye. However, if the site loads slowly, they move to any other site on the search results. With Cloud technology, the speed of your site is greatly improved and bounce rate is reduced.

Other important Reasons For Cloud Technology

How do you know if your company needs a virtualization solution?

Determining whether virtualization is the best solution for a company requires a thorough analysis of the specific needs and requirements of the organization in question. Every online business for instance wishes to boost profit. Some add chat forums to boost traffic, others choose a reliable web host to enable them stay online and so on. This article helps you determine what technology to use to meet your organizational needs.

Some of the things that customers have to consider when they're evaluating private Cloud (virtualization) and Cloud technology include who will provide support and how challenging integration with other systems is.

It's also necessary to consider the costs, including the total cost of expenditure (TCO), operating expenses (OPEX) and capital expenditure (CAPEX), as well as the scalability requirements, security requirements, and how far is the development of functionality expected to reach?

In general terms, the companies that work harder in an OPEX model (that have less IT staff and less security issues) are more focused on the Cloud. Companies that need more control for integration and security - or who work more in a CAPEX model - are moving towards virtualization.

How Do Companies Know If They Should Use A Real Solution In The Cloud?

While virtualization is the best choice for some organizations, a solution in the Cloud offers several benefits that are better suited for other companies.

• IT Outsourcing: Administration, support and daily feeding of support systems moves away from you towards the service provider. This could free up internal IT resources for higher value business support and allow you to allocate your IT budget to other efforts that improve the business.
• Quick Setup: Setting up Cloud is pretty simple and quick. In addition, servers, devices and perpetual software licenses disappear when using that service.
• Pay-As-You-Go: An example can be found in the currently available Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications that enable the download of basic IT requirements to Cloud service providers. Simply pay only for what you need and use. However, it's not necessary to continue investing in many of the products used to support the network and systems, such as spam / antivirus, encryption, data files, email services and external storage.
• Scalability: Using The Cloud, it's also possible to temporarily resize IT capacity by downloading high demand processing requirements to an external vendor. As a result, you'll only pay for what you need and use.

Have it at the back of your mind that Cloud technology and virtualization are not the total solution packages. Like any other service that a business adopts, things can always change.

Although virtualization and Cloud technology have their advantages, they are not competitive approaches. Cloud technology is an evolution of virtualization and customers who virtualize their hardware servers can adopt Cloud technology over time to increase self-service, scalability, service levels and agility.

What You Should Look For In A virtualization Provider?

Companies considering virtualization should think about the following questions:

• Is it a proven solution? Research the history of the product innovation, success and its adoption by customers.
• Is there a vision and public roadmap for the solution? You want to understand how the solution will advance and how it will help your business in the long run.
• What kind of ecosystem support exists for the solution? It's vital that the supplier works with industry-specific Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and with an extensive array of resellers, service providers and system integrators.
• Does the solution offer openness and choice? As your business grows, you want the flexibility to develop your products and processes, with the ability to incorporate other technologies over time.

By David Marshall

Published with permission from blogs.vmware.com