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Cloud Virtualization For Small and Medium Size Businesses
Cloud solution providers now offer attractive virtual services for medium and smaller businessesBy: John Shepler
Virtualization has been a hot topic within enterprise data centers for years. It’s a matter of getting more out of what you already have. Virtualization can turn a lightly loaded server into many smaller servers that you’d otherwise have to buy. It can ease the burden of a heavily loaded server across many hardware platforms, avoiding the expense of one monstrous hardware platform. That’s great for large corporations, but what about small and medium size businesses. Is there any way they can gain the efficiencies of virtualization?
What is Virtualization?
There is now. Just look to the cloud. Virtualization is the magic behind the curtain that makes the cloud a practical reality. Clouds are nothing more than extremely large data centers set up to serve many tenants. The principle is that any customer will perceive having access to infinite resources and a sense of being the only user if the data center is engineered correctly. The practical way to do that is with virtualization.The Entire Cloud is Virtual
Every aspect of the cloud is virtualized. It starts with the servers used as computing resources. The racks and racks full of physical servers are virtualized into hundreds or thousands of virtual servers. What happens on one virtual server stays on one virtual server. As long as there are enough physical resources to support the demand for as many virtual servers as customers activate, users have no idea how many other customers are sharing the same physical assets or what the maximum number of virtual servers can be.Virtualized Services
The same is true for storage, also virtualized, and bandwidth, which has always worked well as a virtualized resource. Even software can be virtualized when running on the cloud. This has led to the Software as a Service or SaaS model. Customers perceive having their own installation of a software package, although in practice they are one out of many.Benefits for Small and Medium Size Businesses
So, what does this have to do with the Small and Medium Business (SMB)? Once you are relieved from the burden of ownership, the barriers to entry for fairly sophisticated computing services shrink considerably. Few companies have the multi-million dollar capital resources to go out and build secure, environmentally controlled data centers with layers of redundant power, and then populate these spaces with rack after rack of the latest hardware. They also need to budget to hire the staff that makes all of these resources work together reliably and keep on top of patches, upgrades and troubleshooting.Run by Specialists
The cloud moves all of that cost and effort from your hands to those of a dedicated service provider who is in business to manage the cloud and nothing else. They’re not trying to run a manufacturing, marketing or healthcare company. They’re in business to run a cloud and run it for excellent performance. By purchasing your IT services from a cloud provider instead of replicating a data center on-premises, the smaller a company you can be and still afford the service. It’s now possible for even “mom & pop” operations to use cloud services from the day the business opens and grow their IT right along with their business.Virtualized Business Phone Service
Here’s something else that SMB operations are finding is better off in the cloud than on-site. That’s PBX telephone systems. How many companies have the expertise to run their own phone systems? Many contract with VARs (Value Added Resellers) and consultants to buy, install and maintain an in-house telephone system. Send all that to the cloud and all you need onsite is the phones and perhaps a provider installed managed gateway. They even take care of the trunk lines that connect to the public telephone system.How It's Priced
What’s all this cost? Cloud services are sold on a pay-as-you-go basis. Many are prices by the month for each user or “seat,” as they are called. Computing is sold by the number of virtual servers and quantity of storage per month or even per hour. Unlike normally contracted services, cloud resources are easily increased or decreased. Often you can do this through a Web-based control panel for your account. Your bill is automatically adjusted as you add and subtract resources.Do You Need The Cloud?
Are you finding it too hard to acquire the computing and communication resources you really need to be competitive? Consider getting those resources as services from the cloud and payonly for what you use now with option of rapidly scaling up when business conditions dictate. Compare prices and options from multiple cloud service providers now and compare with the expense of trying to do it all yourself.Hosted Cloud Computing Services
Get fast competitive price quotes for cloud computing services such as Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), colocated data centers, managed IT services, data backup & recovery, hosted VoIP business telephone solutions, and cloud connection bandwidth services including SD-WAN and managed SDN. Find out in seconds what network services and pricing are available now for your commercial business location anywhere in the U.S. Simply use this handy form...Our extensive cloud and telecom line services are provided by Telarus, Inc., a premier bandwidth & cloud service broker and master agency. Please provide accurate phone & email contact information or call toll free for support anytime at 1-888-848-8749. All information you provide will be used only to support your inquiry and will not be shared.
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