Benefits of VMware

Introduction 
     Virtual servers provide benefits in several fields: higher availability, faster deployment, lower cost, lower energy use, and simpler upgrades. 

High availability
     VMware's VMotion technology enables the live migration of running virtual machines. Virtual machines do not need to be shut down for the vast majority of physical server maintenance events or virtual-environment patching. The VMware infrastructure will detect physical server failures and automatically restart VMs on another host.

Dynamic load balancing
     The VMware infrastructure automatically distributes the load across a cluster of physical servers to ensure the maximum performance of all running virtual machines.

Hardware flexibility
     Changing the resources available to a virtual machine is possible through a simple configuration change. Storage, processor, and memory resources can be matched to actual resource usage throughout the lifetime of the hosted application.

Reduced power consumption - 95% savings 
     With virtualization, a single physical server can host tens of virtual machines; this reduces the power consumed per system. 

     Each typical physical server consumes 200-300 Watts each. In contrast, the VM machines host 30 virtual servers for a total of 400 Watts, meaning each virtual server instance uses about 14 watts apiece. That's approximately a 95% reduction in energy use per server. 

Fast provisioning
     Procuring a physical machine can take days or weeks. In contrast, a virtual machine can be provisioned in one business day. 

Lower overall cost - 75% savings 
Server consolidation reduces the cost of servers, makes more efficient use of data center space, and reduces energy consumption; all of these factors reduce the total cost of ownership. Over a three-year lifecycle, a virtual machine costs approximately 75% less to operate than a physical server.

Typical workloads cost less than $500/year to host on the VMware infrastructure.