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While virtual servers are growing in popularity, they haven’t quite taken off to the extent that some industry experts predicted or expected. About 50 percent of the world’s data centers still have not been virtualized. 

There are three main reasons why IT administrators who have not yet jumped on the virtual server bandwagon are hesitant to adopt the technology. Let’s explore these reasons and some possible solutions. 

As a side effect of implementing virtualization best practices in your organization, you will also reduce the odds of a data recovery emergency and the potential for mission critical data loss. Well-managed virtual server environments are less prone to crashing and hard drive failure. 

Virtualization Challenge #1

Server sprawl is cited as the number one challenge to managing a virtual network, whether it is VMware, Citrix or another popular virtualization product. – Because virtual servers are so easy to create, IT departments often create servers and fail to manage them, resulting in additional storage costs and stress on the server.

To avoid server sprawl, take care to delete VMs when they are no longer needed and avoid the temptation to spawn new VMs from standard images, which allocate more storage space than is needed. 

Virtualization Challenge #2 

Creating successful, timely back-ups without taxing resources or bringing the servers and operations to a grinding halt. – Snapshots create effective and timely back-ups, but are resource hungry and often cannot be taken while other applications are running. This poses problems with data back-ups and disaster recovery. 

New software solutions, however, make it possible to create data back-ups automatically while applications are in process, without a significant drop in performance. 

Virtualization Challenge #3 –

Having the right processes, procedures and personnel in place to manage virtual servers can take care of the first two virtualization challenges easily. You already know that you can count on 24 Hour Data to recover mission critical data from your VMWare or virtual server in a data recovery emergency. You can trust our sister company, 24 Hour Computer, to establish and manage your virtual server, too. If you prefer to manage IT resources in house, remember that, once set up, it takes less time and personnel to maintain a virtual server, resulting in reduced IT costs. 

If your organization hasn’t taken the step to virtualization, it might be time to consider VMware, a Citrix virtual server, Microsoft Hyper-V server, Oracle VM or any other type of virtual server. 24 Hour Data supports all major brands of virtual machines, so you know you’re protected in the event of a data recovery emergency.