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Five Critical Criteria for Server Virtualization

By Alice LaPlante

Virtualization is the topic du jour among IT professionals. As CIOs continue to search for more efficient - and cost-effective - ways to manage the data center, the promise of being able to do more with fewer resources is spurring a large proportion of enterprises to test the virtualization waters.

Server virtualization is defined as a technology that allows you to transform a physical computing resource into a logical one. The technology can be implemented as a single physical machine that operates like multiple servers, or multiple servers that appear as a single machine. Either way, it promises significant benefits, among them better hardware utilization, improved load balancing, more flexible provisioning, lower power consumption and reduced data center personnel costs.

"Virtualization allows organizations to better utilize their resources, as well as have the ability to respond quickly and agilely to changing business needs," says Barb Goldworm, president and chief analyst at Focus Consulting, a Boulder, Colo.-based research firm specializing in systems and storage. "It's a very powerful technology."

But as is often the case with new technologies, the reality may not live up to the promise. (article continues)

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