23.2. Benefits of Virtual Machines

23.2. Benefits of Virtual Machines
	Chapter 23. Virtual Machine Server

Improvements in virtualization technology are driving rapid adoption of virtual machines in data center and branch office environments. Virtual machines are being used to:

Consolidate servers in the data center.
Servers running in the data center are often underutilized. One study showed that data center CPU time averages about 12 percent of capacity. By consolidating several physical servers as VMs running on a virtual machine server, data centers are lowering hardware, maintenance, and electrical costs.
Consolidate and host legacy applications.
Isolate applications on the same physical server.
Balance the computing load across data center resources.
Provide application portability and flexibility across hardware platforms.