The Risks and Rewards of Virtualization in the Cloud

SMBs Leverage Solutions Designed to Enhance Productivity and Profits

DAVENPORT, IA - 9/2/2011 – Over the recent few years, virtualization has been gaining ground among small to mid-sized businesses. Essentially, it involves the creation of a virtual version of something, such as a hardware platform, operating system, storage device or network resource. The overarching goal of virtualization is to improve an organization’s scalability and increase their capacity to handle heavy workloads. In a fast-paced business world, many business owners have been quick to take advantage of this opportunity but we are finally beginning to see some of the potential downsides. While adoption rates continue to grow, business owners must continue to ask themselves, “Do the rewards of virtualization really outweigh the risks?”
In examining this question, we must have a firm grasp of the main risks that businesses face when they make the decision to virtualize their assets. Firstly, a business must decide whether to handle the transition internally or externally. Often times existing IT staff lack the expertise necessary to mange the transition. New technologies require new skill sets and many IT professionals have not had sufficient experience to handle such a complex transition.
Another risk that business owners face is whether or not they’re selecting the right software platforms to utilize in transitioning each part of their business to the cloud. Each platform has different core functions, strengths and weaknesses and this needs to be considered when making a buying decision. Most businesses prefer to bring in third parties to leverage their technical expertise to make sure the new technology is tailor-fit to satisfy each SMBs individual needs. Additionally, third party technology providers, alleviate concerns regarding the challenge of how to gather sensitive information from IT personnel without endangering the business.
It’s important to note that while these challenges are very real for business owners, the trend is still in favor of virtualization. The primary way that business owners are overcoming these obstacles is by partnering with a reputable technology provider to handle the transition and mitigate these risks. By bringing in a partner that is on the leading edge of technology, business owners can be rest assured that implementation will be handled professionally by experienced personnel.
New virtual systems are run remotely at high-security, often military-grade, facilities which offer far greater protection for sensitive corporate information. Additionally, these facilities are monitored by experts who continuously search for the latest technology to better protect vital business systems. Virtualization may have its downsides but as long as we are aware of the potential risks beforehand, the transition yields very significant rewards.