Cloud computing marketing can be deceiving. When you see an image of the cloud, it’s often a happy, bubbly, white puffball floating delightfully in front of a blue sky background. Its presence is both calming and reassuring, which makes you believe that anything is possible.

Progressive SMBs are defined by how they use technology to achieve business growth. From acquiring new customers to managing suppliers to exceeding sales quotas, IT helps a lot. But traditional hardware and software solutions are expensive to purchase and support.

Virtualization allows you to eliminate dependency on physical hardware limitations and software requirements. Before you choose any one virtualization solution, it's a good idea to go over the different companies providing virtualization services. Below is a list of five popular vendors offering reliable virtualization platforms.

Most business owners don’t think of Virtualization when talking about Disaster Recovery (DR). However, virtualization actually serves as an effective disaster recovery plan. Here’s a breakdown for those unfamiliar with how the one can serve as a reliable way of implementing the other.

Just because virtualization is an incredibly advanced and complicated technology doesn’t mean small businesses can’t get in on the action. As experts debate the merits of virtual desktops versus containers, all SMBs need are an elementary understanding of how virtualization works and an IT provider.

In a win-win move for virtualization vendors and end-users, two of the biggest names in the industry are making their platforms compatible with each other. Amazon Web Services (AWS) can now host virtual machines that use VMware, and that has huge implications for disaster recovery plans.

By their very definition, servers are tasked with managing significantly higher burdens than the average desktop workstation. If your business has a server onsite, there are so many things you need to consider to get the most out of your investment. Read on for a few of them:
Mount your servers properly
Small businesses are usually forced to prioritize the here and now over long-term planning.

As difficult as virtualization may be to understand, it continues to march toward widespread adoption. Up until now, the service was mostly limited to making hardware and software resources better allocated based on needs. However, corporate bigwigs AT&T and Verizon are jumping into the game by adding the option to virtualize network services.

Virtualization is as complicated as it is beneficial to SMBs. The concept alone can take time to fully grasp and making it a reality at your company is even more difficult. However, Amazon Web Services needs to make the service as easy as possible if they expect to retain customers and increase their bottom line.

Keeping up with tech trends as a small or medium-sized business owner is tough. Virtualization may be a great example of this, but it’s definitely worth the effort. Between the boost to network security and ability to scale your workstations and servers according to your business growth, it’s time to start learning a little more about it.