The inescapable buzzword in the IT industry today is ‘virtualisation’. But this relatively straightforward concept is causing almost unprecedented degrees of confusion with most explanations essentially describing a hosted solution, says Nigel Davey from IT support service, Managed Networks.

Any online search seeking clarity servers the client no better as they will be presented with over 20 variations and definitions―much like a vastly extended ‘Call My Bluff’ for the IT industry. It is easy to see why non-technical people are perplexed. So why the mystification?

Remote hosting and virtualisation have both spread across medium and large enterprises very quickly and simultaneously, which has lead to a merge in terms and concepts. Consequently a lot of people are confusing their facts. So what are the facts when it comes to both sets of technologies? Here is a brief guide to help you cut through the jargon and understand what it is that each term means:

Virtualisation

New technology has the ability to better utilise the high specification of the machine’s processing capability, essentially getting an increased capacity out of less hardware. This cut in hardware reduces the business’ cost of ownership and their carbon footprint. The superior hardware that is used in virtualised solutions means that servers are more robust and offer excellent disaster recovery processes (sometimes this can be a matter of minutes). All of which offers organisations vastly improved business continuity.

Hosting

The term often mistaken with virtualisation is ‘hosting’. This is also server related but the client leases either a dedicated server or space on a much larger hosted server. While this can be shared or dedicated it is a solution, unlike virtualisation, that physically removes the server from the office, reducing the risk substantially. Hosting, like virtualisation, comes with more cost effective server support and reduced power consumption but the big difference is the opportunity it offers to reduce the company’s total cost of ownership.

So which should a company choose? The benefits both services offer include saving money through scalability, reduced overheads (including server support and lower power consumption), drastically reducing the business’ carbon footprint, and generally improved business continuity. However, virtualisation does have three key advantages: mid-term reduced hardware costs, retained control over the server, and further improved business continuity.

By contrast, the advantages that hosting provides over virtualisation are that with minimal start-up costs there is little impact on the cash flow and budgets, and having removed the server to a separate geographic location―varying upon the companies size―a business with high dependency on their IT department can benefit from increased resilience as their server is working within a safer environment. Either way, behind the jargon, there is a solution suitable for everyone.