"Virtualization technology was part of the IBM mainframe decades before virtualization gained its current industry adoption. The recent broader adoption of virtualization is due to the fact that enterprise datacenters can no longer keep up with the demands of new applications by adding racks of servers. Datacenters are already overstretched in terms of server count, electricity consumed, and heat generated per square foot of raised floor space.
"While virtualization, which reduces server count by increasing utilization efficiency and lowering operating costs, is an excellent solution to the problem of overwhelming demand, it can also add a burden to system availability since more applications are now running in each box. Any failure can now cause more disruption to business..."
