Making virtualization efficient: Three business use cases

Experience tells us that virtualization makes companies more efficient because it can reduce their carbon footprints, shrink their data centers, and gain economies in resource utilization. But in the end analysis—the only ways virtualization means anything to the end business is in (1) the initial cost savings that it delivers from data centers that now operate fewer "metal" servers; and (2) new business advantages that virtualization brings about.

There are surprisingly few studies that talk about the latter. Nevertheless, it's important to cite key industry use cases where virtual technology has actually enabled companies to approach their businesses differently.

Here are some examples:

#1 Credit Union Service Organizations (CUSOs)

Operating as not-for-profit entities, credit unions long ago discovered that forking out the money to buy expensive servers and software for their core processing was something that many of them couldn't afford. So—they banded together to form CUSOS where they all pitched in to fund a central data center and to run a single server with a multi-tenant architecture that featured segregated virtual systems for each credit union's transaction processing. The value was immediate in operational cost savings and in delivery of value to credit union members. Without virtualization, it would not have been possible.

#2 Multi-tenant back office accounting for the oil and gas industry

Supporting over 4,200 gas and oil industry customers,

#3 Distance learning

The University of Arkansas facilitated new distance learning and resource sharing approaches in its IT curriculum to ensure that students got "real world" experience in developing enterprise systems and databases. To do this, the University used virtual systems on an What do all of these virtualization efforts have in common? 

They capitalized on innovation and monetization opportunities created by virtualizations—and didn't end their efforts with the initial data center gains.