One of the most, if not the single most, empowering newer technology is the ability to virtualize the server. Yet it seems that most I.T. organizations still do not understand the power that virtualization can bring to their ability to execute.
A friend of mine recently described me as a "Amazon Web Services (AWS) Evangelist" and I thought it was a fitting description of my recent attempts to prostelize the good news of AWS. AWS is just one way to harness the power of virtualization, its ability to jump-start the technology needs of a start-up with little to no initial capital expense is its main appeal. For the entrenched I.T. organization, a solution using VMWare or Microsoft Virtual Server will typical fit the bill.
The idea is that a virtual server can live and die in your environment with a whim. Mistakes are corrected in 5-minutes rather than 5-hours if the correct procedures are followed and back up is a breeze. The radical change that virtualization can bring to your organization is the empowerment of your staff. Before when a developer had a great idea and required a server to test a hypothesis a real piece of physical hardware was required. Now, the only requirement is that you have appropriate resources in your virtual cluster. You can enable your staff to dream big and give them the tools they need to chase their dream without impacting your resources necessary for the business to function.
There are of course areas where the best decision is not to go virtual, one of those being database servers, but for the vast majority of your application server needs a virtualized approach can open a whole new world of possibilities.
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