In today’s fast-paced world, virtualization has become a critical aspect of businesses. Virtualization helps to streamline operations, improve flexibility, and save costs. In the networking domain, virtualization has proven to be an invaluable tool for organizations that operate complex internetworking environments. Let’s explore some of the advantages of virtualizing your internetworking devices.
1. Improved agility and scalability
Virtualization of internetworking devices enables IT teams to swiftly respond to changing business needs. Virtualization permits the quick creation and deployment of new virtual machines to extend the network, increasing scalability while reducing overhead costs. This ability to quickly adapt to change also reduces time-to-market for new services, features, and applications that organizations wish to deliver to their customers.
2. Enhanced security
Virtualization allows for securing the management of the network, which increases security and reduces risks. When connecting an internetworking device to the network, the device’s virtualization capabilities permit the creation of virtual instances that can be isolated and limited to access only the necessary resources. This improves the network’s security posture by limiting potential pathways for attackers.
3. Increased resilience
Virtualized internetworking devices allow for disaster-proofing the network through backup and failover strategies. In the past, it was required to invest in expensive redundancies and disaster recovery strategies, which increased the network’s cost exponentially. With virtualization, advanced techniques like snapshotting and abstracting network connections provide fast and reliable disaster recovery without extra expense.
4. Improved resource allocation
Virtualized internetworking devices provide a more efficient way of allocating resources. This is achieved by creating virtual instances that use resources based on predefined policies, significantly improving the use of system resources. Additionally, administrators can leverage a solution like software-defined networking (SDN) to deploy apps and resources based on application performance, further optimising network performance.
5. Cost savings
Virtualization reduces the need for purchasing hardware, as virtual machines run on existing physical hardware, making it an excellent cost-saving measure. Virtualization allows for combining multiple servers and devices onto one physical server, increasing the utilization of hardware, thereby reducing, power, and cooling costs.
Conclusion
Virtualization of internetworking devices is steadily becoming a cornerstone of modern networking. It is a powerful tool, providing numerous benefits that organizations can leverage in their efforts to deliver faster, more improved services. Some of the advantages include increased agility and scalability, better security, enhanced resilience, more efficient resource allocation, and considerable cost savings. With these advantages, virtualization is becoming mandatory for organizations who want to maintain a competitive edge in today’s business environment.