Virtualization of IT infrastructure for small and medium businesses

Abstract

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are adopting virtualization to improve server utilization and consolidation. However, virtualization can also be used to create a virtualized environment for the whole IT infrastructure. This paper presents a review of the various virtualization techniques and open source implementations. These techniques enable SMBs of all sizes to create a virtualized environment for their IT systems and their own infrastructure. In this context, SMBs can move forward with virtualization beyond just servers and also virtualize the entire network infrastructure that were traditionally hardware bound. As a result, SMBs can reduce their IT budgets and the time spent on routine IT administration tasks.