You can never be too careful with cybersecurity. A single data breach can bring devastating consequences, which may include severe reputation damage, lost productivity, or even legal action. If you want to ensure your company’s safety, you must consolidate your systems, implement built-in redundancy, and reduce your reliance on in-house infrastructure. Virtualization can help you in these areas, but it’s a complex piece of technology that many people are not familiar with.
What Is Virtualization?
The term virtualization is often confused with the cloud, but they are completely different things that frequently work together. The cloud simply refers to a hosted computing environment where IT workloads are handled in a remote data center, typically through the use of virtualization technology for more efficient use of available hardware and better control over IT assets.
Virtualization refers to the act of creating a virtual version of computing resources like processing power, storage space, memory, apps, and operating systems. For example, a normal computer typically runs a single operating system, complete with a desktop and all your applications and data storage. Virtualized systems are instead defined by software, and are designed to emulate physical systems, such as networked storage devices, workstation computers, or even entire servers.
Virtualization and cloud computing naturally complement each other since systems hosted in the cloud operate from large data centers consisting of lots of computers running in parallel but consolidated under a single host operating system. For such a supercomputer to serve multiple businesses, the available hardware resources need to be divided up into logical assets called virtual machines (VMs), which are then delivered over the internet to the screen in front of you. As the computing workload is handled in the data center, all that’s needed on your end is any device with a screen that’s connected to the internet.
How Virtualization Assists with Business Continuity
A VM is a file that can be copied, moved, or deleted just like any other. However, if you load up the VM in virtualization software (either through a local or web-based application), you will have a fully functioning computing resource complete with all its other assets, like hardware drivers, programs, and documents.
Because they come in the form of files, it’s much easier to clone or back up VMs. For example, if your business falls victim to severe data loss or damage to key hardware, you can simply open the VM on any other device and access your desktop or other system as though nothing ever happened. That means virtualization makes business continuity, as well as technological scalability, much quicker and easier.
Enabling Better Security through the Cloud
As we’ve discussed, virtualization and the cloud often go together, because it is impractical and inefficient to have one computer performing only one task at a time.
Although many business leaders are anxious about outsourcing their data storage, application hosting, and virtualization needs to the cloud, partnering with a reliable vendor can actually give security a major boost. Economies of scale give cloud providers access to the toughest administrative, physical, and technological security measures in the industry. Chances are your data will be far safer stored in a virtualized container in a cutting-edge data center than it will be in the typical office environment. What’s more, virtualized resources are much easier to manage, segment, and protect.
Spectrumwise helps organizations in the areas of Charlotte, Rock Hill, and Gastonia achieve their cybersecurity and operational goals through dependable technology. If you’re ready to enjoy that difference, call us today to schedule a consultation.
