Here is a small business virtualization example in which we consolidate multiple servers down to one:

We have looked at the benefits of desktop virtualization in Small Business Endpoint Virtualization - Smartphones, Tablets And PCs and what two flavors of desktop virtualization are in What is Desktop Virtualization? VDI vs. Session Virtualization.  Now we will answer the question, how does desktop virtualization work to improve productivity.

We touched on this topic in Small Business Endpoint Virtualization - Smartphones, Tables And PCs, but what is desktop virtualization?  For the sake if this discussion, endpoint and desktop virtualization refer to the same area, so as to not get lost in semantics, I will use the latter term.  Perhaps more than other types of virtualization, desktop virtualization has multiple deployment models including operating system virtualization and application virtualization.  Microsoft segments operating virtualization into Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Session Virtualization and Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization.

Let's look at a simplified view of VDI and Session Virtualization to begin with from a use case perspective to see which technology is best suited for which business need.

This is a great question that small business owners and IT leaders often pose. In fact, virtualization cost is substantially less, both initially and over time. In one recent example, Turbotek consolidated four servers into one through virtualization. Had the customer refreshed their servers with individual machines for Microsoft SQL Server and their three existing terminal servers, it would have cost them over $50K. With virtualization, it cost them roughly $29K. In addition, they are saving nearly $500 per month on power, cooling and space.  Finally, there are other benefits reviewed in Virtualization And Small Business Benefits - Dollars And Sense that include substantially faster recovery time, potential tax incentives and increased agility, flexibility and efficiency while reducing risk.

Small Business Endpoint Virtualization provides a great way for organizations to increase productivity and reduce costs while minimizing risk and increasing agility.  There are an increasing number of endpoint options that users have from smartphones to tablets and various flavors of PCs.  This gives people the option to be connected when and how they want to.

Not only is going green good for the environment, but it can have a lot of great financial and other benefits for your small business.

There are many things to consider when virtualizing - storage requirements, number of users and disaster recovery to name a few.  One thing that should be at the top of the list is security. Small businesses are embracing server, storage and other forms of virtualization as a means of reducing costs, improving efficiency and becoming more agile.  The last post provides a framework for quantifying these benefits.  What about the security of virtualization? Does introducing this new technology make small business IT infrastructure more vulnerable?

We have reviewed virtualization and small business benefits at a high level in Small Business IT Virtualization - A Path To Savings, Storage Virtualization Benefits for Small Business IT and Best Practices in Technology for Small Business in Uncertain Times.  Let's go down a level of abstraction and talk dollars and sense, so to speak.

Just as server virtualization allows small businesses to abstract the individual computing resources from physical hardware, storage virtualization benefits for small business IT include efficiency and ease of management of their information storage resources.