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The current challenging economic climate makes it necessary for businesses to seek ways of maximizing their
use  of  resources while  simultaneously  reducing  their operational costs, and virtualization enables them to do
just that. In addition to the obvious cost effciencies already outlined, there are also a host of other compelling
reasons for SMBs to consider virtualizing sooner rather than later:

• Proving green credentials. Consumers are becoming increasingly environmentally conscious and are increasingly taking environmental considerations into account when making  purchasing  decisions.  This means  that companies need to be green and need to be seen to be green. If they are not, it could result in lost business. This shift in consumer priorities is also causing businesses to ramp up their own green initiatives. Today, it is not uncommon for larger companies to ask their suppliers and business  partners  about  their  environmental  policies. And  this  is a  trend which  is  likely  to continue. Gartner
  recently predicted2 that, by 2011, global enterprises will require that their suppliers be able to prove their green credentials via an audited process in order to retain their status  as  a  preferred  supplier.Gartner’s  prediction  is already  becoming  reality:  a  number  of multi-national enterprises  are  now  looking  at ways  of  implementing auditing processes to establish the green credentials of
  their supplier.

While greening may currently be voluntary, it may very well soon become a business necessity.

• Incentives. Utility companies are starting to offer incentives to companies which make their IT operations more energy effcient. For example, Pacifc Gas and Electric offers a rebate to businesses undertaking virtualization projects that result in the removal of server equipment 3. The rebates are typically in the region of $150 to $300 and capped at 50% of the cost of the project. Further-more, the removal of servers will, as noted above, result in a saving on the energy bill of between $300 and $600 per year per server removed.
   
• Rapidly escalating management costs. According  to a  2006  study  by  IDC4, management  and  administrative expenditure in data centers is growing three times faster than expenditure on computing equipment. While data centers and SMBs may be very different animals, smaller businesses are nonetheless facing similar problems. As their reliance on IT has increased, so their IT infrastructures have become increasingly complex and increasingly time consuming to manage.
   

Virtualization  enables  SMBs  to  simplify  IT,  reducing the management  overhead.  In  a  virtual  environment, tasks such as provisioning, maintenance, confguration, monitoring and backup become considerably easier and
considerably  less  time  consuming, enabling SMBs  to combat soaring management costs.
 

In the past, SMBs would have found that virtualization had a somewhat swings and roundabouts effect on the management overhead; while in some areas its impact would be positive, in others it would be negative. But that
is no longer the case. As virtualization has become increasingly mainstream, so virtualization solutions have
become easier  to use. For example, VMware now offer Acceleration Kits 5 designed to help SMBs enjoy the
gains of virtualization without experiencing the pains.