Small to medium-sized companies that implement server virtualization tend to take an 'all or nothing' approach to the technology, a new Impact Research report from Info-Tech Research Group says. Although smaller companies are less likely to gamble on new technologies like virtualization, those that do often reap greater business benefits than their larger enterprise counterparts because they are more decisive ab Small to medium-sized companies that implement server virtualization tend to take an ‘all or nothing’ approach to the technology, a new Impact Research report from Info-Tech Research Group says. Although smaller companies are less likely to gamble on new technologies like virtualization, those that do often reap greater business benefits than their larger enterprise counterparts because they are more decisive about the implementation.“Small to medium-sized companies often have a more relaxed approval process and higher tolerance for risk. As a result, they take an all or nothing approach to adopting new technologies, implementing them broadly across the organization. Large enterprises experience more difficulty implementing new technologies such as virtualization,” said Matt Brudzynski, senior research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group.Virtualization is a technique that ‘fools’ servers into thinking they are unique devices when in fact they become a shared resource thereby decreasing the number of physical machines required in the data center. Info-Tech’s Impact Research report, “The Business Case in Virtualization”, also finds that the companies that have taken an all or nothing policy when implementing virtualization have seen a greater return on their investment resulting primarily from hardware savings. “Companies that take a robust approach to their virtualization implementation can see their hardware acquisition costs decrease by 40 to 75 per cent and will also save another 25 to 50 per cent in recurring monthly costs for hardware-related maintenance,” Brudzynski said.Brudzynski notes that virtualization is an infrastructure initiative that can bring some level of value to businesses of any size. The greatest benefit to date has been seen in small and medium-sized organizations where the proportion of the IT environment that is based on x86 servers is much higher. Large companies have more extensive and layered technologies and frequently test virtualization across smaller infrastructure segments.Info-Tech strongly recommends x86 server consolidation through virtualization for any enterprise looking to streamline functionality and reduce operating costs. Software Development