Not all hardware or software can be virtualized
The drawback, however, is that not all servers and applications are virtualization-friendly, Livesay said. "Typically, the main reason you may not virtualize a server or application is only because the application vendor may not support it yet, or recommend it," he said.
But virtualization is highly scalable. It lets businesses easily create additional resources as required by many applications, such as by easily adding extra servers – it's all done on-demand on an as-needed basis, without any significant investments in time or money.
IT admins can create new servers quickly, because they do not need to purchase new hardware each time they need a new server, Livesay said. "If the resources are available, we can create a new server in a few clicks of a mouse," he added.
The ease of creating additional resources also helps businesses scale as they grow. "This scenario might be good for small businesses that are growing quickly, or businesses using their
data center for testing and development," Livesay said.
Businesses should keep in mind, though, that one of the main goals and advantages of virtualization is the efficient use of resources. Therefore, they should be careful not to let the effortlessness of creating servers result in the carelessness of allocating resources.
"Server sprawl is one of the unintended consequences of virtualization," Livesay said. "Once administrators realize how easy it is to add new servers, they start adding a new server for everything. Soon you find that instead of six to 10 servers, you are now managing 20 to 30 servers."
The limitations virtualization faces include a lack of awareness that certain applications or workloads can be virtualized, according to Adams.
"Workloads such as Hadoop, NoSQL databases, Spark and containers often start off on bare-metal hardware but present new opportunities to be virtualized later on," Adams said. "Virtualization can now support many new applications and workloads within the first 60 to 90 days on the market."
Although more software applications are adapting to virtualization situations, there can be licensing complications due to multiple hosts and migrations. Regarding performance and licensing issues, it's prudent to check if certain essential applications work well in a virtualized environment.