Virtualization represents a sea change in IT practices. Bound for years by the "one application, one server" rule, IT infrastructure was over capacity, underused and not cost-effective.

With the advent of virtualization and the associated move to hosting multiple virtual machines on a single server, many of these problems disappeared.

Because multiple virtual machines can be placed on a single server, IT organizations can ensure that the machine's processing power is portioned out to many applications. Utilization, often measured in single digits, can be increased to 70 percent or more, ensuring that far less capital is wasted on high-cost, little-used servers.

The link for this article located at CSO Online is no longer available.