Although the terms are commonly interchanged, Virtualization and Cloud Computing are, in fact, different approaches to making computing resources more widely available, redundant and efficient. Understanding the key differences between Virtualization and cloud computing will help you to choose the solution that best fits your business needs. These two techniques and their implementation can also vary in terms of cost and security depending on the size and nature of your operation.

Comparison

Virtualization is an arrangement in which multiple “virtual”, or non-physical, servers are located on a single physical computer. For example, a virtualized system might host an e-mail server, printing server, database managers and several application nodes on a single piece of actual equipment. The primary advantage of this approach is that it drastically reduces resource usage, and therefore the cost, of distributed business systems. Modules that are not being used can be placed into a standby state, meaning you only use the resources you actually need at any given time, reducing initial investments in hardware and energy. From a security and redundancy standpoint, virtualized systems can also be ported from one physical system to another in the event of a hardware failure or for the purpose of securing back-ups.

Pure cloud computing is different in the sense that cloud systems are often distributed across multiple dedicated servers, some of which are intentionally spread throughout the world to provide extra security against single data center losses due to to power failure or natural disasters. Cloud computing is more of a “computing as a utility” service than virtualization, which is a physical arrangement set up to address issues of security via redundancy and global availability. Cloud computing clients pay cloud system providers for the use of computing resources like bandwidth, storage space and processing power, and can quickly ramp up their consumption of these resources as required by their business. Should peak business periods require more space or processing capability, cloud users can seamlessly increase their system usage and be billed accordingly. In this way, cloud computing is designed with scalability in mind. However, it should be noted that cloud computing is only as secure as the hosting system, and subscribers must entrust sensitive data to their providers.

Go to the Cloud, or Virtualize?

Both virtualization and cloud computing are based on the principle of securing data by making it redundantly available. Should one physical server unit fail, active processes are instantaneously switched over to a separate unit on standby, the goal being to prevent any interruption in service to system users. Both approaches are designed with business in mind, because they offer solutions that allow companies to provide online applications and services to their clients on a massive scale regardless of their market’s physical location. Additionally, both virtualization and cloud computing systems are designed to make the use of computing resources more economical and reliable.

However, there are a few important considerations to make when deciding which approach will better suit your business. Virtualized systems provide more proprietary control over your network and processes, but are likely to involve more upfront cost as well. Purchasing and installing the required hardware to serve your own virtualized systems is costly, and it is essential to have these systems setup and configured correctly, adding specialized labor costs to the equation. Cloud computing, on the other hand, is far easier to initialize. In many cases it’s simply a matter of renting out the resources you require from a cloud computing provider and transferring your data or applications. The upfront cost of cloud computing is usually more manageable because these systems are designed to charge users only for the resources they consume. The best way to decide whether virtualization or cloud computing will be more cost effective for your operation is to consider your long term plans for growth. Cloud computing will always scale with your business, but so will its cost. Virtualized proprietary systems, on the other hand, will cost you significantly less to operate once installed and properly managed, and will allow your business to better maximize its hardware.

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