From Mainframe to Mainstream

Ricardo Harvin
Website Development Manager
U.S. Chamber of Commerce

The incredible growth of computer technology is opening up a new way to use computers, called virtual computing, or virtualization.

In its most basic form, virtualization allows one computer to act and perform like many computers. It works by using software to create and manage what are called virtual machines. Each virtual machine acts like a separate computer and has access to a portion of the real machine’s resources (e.g., hard drive space, CPU, and memory).

This enables you to save on the cost of buying additional machines. For example, many Mac owners use a virtualization program that enables them to run both OS X (the Mac operating system) and all of its programs, and Microsoft Windows and its programs, all on the same computer. This is possible because modern personal computers are powerful enough to run many pieces of software at the same time.

Virtualization software can also be used to combine the resources of many computers to act and perform as one. This is most often used in data centers that host business applications like Web sites, customer relations management software, billing systems, and inventory management databases.

Configured correctly, a virtualized environment can help you maximize existing hardware resources and run your business more efficiently. You can add or replace virtual machines more easily than real machines and better manage your costs. Many data hosting companies allow you to pay for just the virtual capacity you need, when it’s needed, rather than buying hardware servers that may sit idle at times.

Virtualization can also help you avoid having a single point of failure—something many businesses are vulnerable to, especially those that don’t take backups and redundancy seriously. A single beefy computer may be able to meet all of your business needs—until it stops working. But a virtual machine can be run on many computers at once; if one computer fails, the others can keep the software running.

Finally, virtualization can make it easy to demo new software or changes to existing programs since each virtual machine is isolated from the others. If you crash one, the others can continue to run without interruption.

Controlling costs, maximizing your investments, enhancing your flexibility, and eliminating redundancy in your operations are all benefits of virtual computing.

E-mail questions to techcorner@uschamber.com.