Virtualisation

Many of today's computer networks were designed on the assumption that each server will run a single operating system and single application, be it an email server, a database server or a simple 'file and print' server that acts simply as a repository for users' files and for printing on shared printers.

Today's computer hardware is so powerful that this approach leaves most machines vastly under-utilised for most of the time and consequently you are paying for computer power that you are just not using.

Virtualisation is a software technology that allows you to run multiple 'virtual' machines on a single physical machine, sharing the resources of that single computer across multiple environments. VMWare is the clear market leader in virtualisation software and Samarind is fully accredited as a VMWare Professional Partner.

Savings

Virtualisation can bring huge advantages to a network. It can:

Reduce equipment quantity - if you have 5 or more physical servers there are considerable savings to be achieved
Reduce electricity and air-conditioning costs - be eco-friendly and save money at the same time
Enable faster deployment of new servers
Allow much improved backup and recovery times.

Virtualisation also helps you have a very smooth disaster recovery system, which can cater for most eventualities. Please see our disaster recovery section.