Virtualization: It’s time for network-based virtualization

While many of us are familiar with Operating System virtualization, the Network-based virtualization is also catching up fast. Major advantages of Network based virtualization are:

• Reduced investment and operating costs with increased security.
• Partitioning a single physical network into multiple virtual networks.
• Shared services across all partitions of the network.
• Consolidation of many physical networks into a single infrastructure.

Users will see a single infrastructure while it might have been built out of several hundreds of networks. They will experience a less cluttered and virtualized network instead of the traditional messed-up network which comes as a result of several networks with different services spread across them.

Applying network based virtualization to file storage will dramatically enhance the productivity of users as they see a single network and accessing any file will appear as if accessed from one network while it could have been stored in any network, anywhere in the world. Such an implementation reduces your investments and operating costs and at the same time increases security. You will not have worry about rolling out security policies across all the networks, just the single virtualized network should be updated with security policies and you are done.

Another important thing you must take into consideration is that network based virtualization not only increases security but also dramatically cuts down on Auditing time. With only one virtualized network to audit, you save time and thus increase productivity. Changes are easy to implement and end user impact is reduced.

Ability to partition the existing network infrastructure into several virtual networks helps in many ways. While one virtual network can be used by people within the company to access various services, at the same time, a restricted virtual network can be created for the outsourced company to access your resources. With policies specific to each network, security is increased and at the same time your investments towards providing an isolated network for external customers is reduced to a great extent.

Another major factor to think about is the amount of money that could be saved with consolidation of several networks into a single infrastructure. Networks such as Storage network, VoIP network, Streaming media, Wireless network can be consolidated to create a single infrastructure which is much better to manage and administer.

With years to come, network based virtualization will become a common practice to follow across medium and large organizations with small organization also indirectly benefiting out of it.