Servers are essential for most modern businesses, whether they're a spry startup or a large enterprise. Traditionally, superfast computing came with an equally super cost, but today, virtual servers provide many of the same luxuries at a fraction of the price.

What is a virtual server?

In a traditional server setup, you'll have multiple physical servers, with each typically dedicated to a specific task. As you scale, this quickly becomes expensive, with each server requiring its own maintenance, energy, floor space, ventilation, backup solution, and other infrastructure.

Virtual servers cut down these costs by hosting multiple virtual machines on a single, physical host. Each has a dedicated operating system and portion of the host's processing power, providing similar performance at a lower cost to the end-user. The benefits of going virtual, however, reach beyond cost.

Improving flexibility and resilience

As well as optimizing costs, virtual servers greatly increase flexibility. When a business purchases on-site server hardware, they often have to buy more than they need, leading to underutilization and inefficiencies. Conversely, if they spend conservatively, they risk hampering business progress.

Virtual server environments are able to scale far faster, at a much lower cost, in both directions. Creating a new server is as easy as spinning up another virtual machine. Or, should the performance requirements of an existing server change, upgrading its storage or performance is just a few clicks and a short wait away.

Further, multiple operating systems and workload types can be realized on a single physical server. For example, when upgrading operating systems, legacy software can be maintained on a small virtual server with an old, compatible OS, while other workloads are moved over to the new one.

Flexibility also comes in the management of virtual servers. As well as a unified technical control panel across multiple servers, admins benefit from automated security patching and reduced backup complexity and disaster recovery. In contrast to physical or dedicated servers, virtual machines can be quickly and easily saved, replicated, and moved between physical servers.

Infrastructure and Support Is Still Vital

All of these benefits make virtual servers and hosting ideal for SMBs, but these, alongside the performance of your server, are still highly dependent on hardware and infrastructure. VirtuWorks' virtual cloud servers provide top-tier performance, security, and resilience at a reasonable cost while eliminating complex setup or natural disaster worries.

Our proprietary virtual infrastructure is located in a Tier IV data center: the renowned Terremark NAP of the Americas. Therefore, it’s protected against weather, power outages, and other factors that typically cause extended downtime. Critically, this is paired with VirtuWorks’ unparalleled 24/7/365 support to help you quickly create servers for your exact needs and help with any problems that may arise.

By pairing the generous cost savings and flexibility virtual servers offer with VirtuWorks’ top-of-the-line performance and support, your SMB will gain the performance, security, and scalability of a large enterprise on a budget more suited to your needs.

If you'd like to learn more about how VirtuWorks can help you, get in touch today.