Verizon Business intros virtualization services suite

Verizon Business today unveiled a suite of professional services for virtualization aimed at enabling businesses to operate data centers and IT resources more efficiently and at lower cost. The professional services include needs assessment through design, migration and deployment review, and they can be purchased individually or as a suite.

Virtualization is a growing trend that enables enterprises to use their available server resources to support applications on a virtual basis rather than dedicate servers or other infrastructure to support specific applications and risk stranding some capacity.

Enterprises are turning to virtualization on a growing basis for a variety of reasons, said Abby Gregory, manager of global services for Verizon Business. They include the ability to “improve redundancy, security and the availability of infrastructure, while better controlling costs associated with data center space, including space and power,” Gregory said. “By reducing your need for servers and hosts, you are leveraging your infrastructure in a different fashion.”

Enterprises facing facilities exhaust can use virtualization to eliminate the need to add servers, power and new space by virtualizing their applications tier, Gregory said. “In one real-world example, a customer had 50 servers in total doing Web applications and data, but they were peaking at their utilization on their applications servers, and the facility they were in had run out of power and couldn’t give them more floor space,” Gregory said. “By looking into virtualization, Verizon helped them reduce their server count from 50 to 32, all without taking downtime, so now they have room to expand.”

Virtualization also can facilitate data center consolidation and moves, support efforts to “go green” by reducing power and enable business continuity solutions, Gregory said.