Virtual v’s Physical Appliances – 4 Compelling Reasons for Change
Scalability and Mobility - part II
Attempting to prebuild this type of architecture using only physical appliances can create considerable space and cost difficulties as it requires that the organization plan for the largest throughput and build it out accordingly. This also leaves no possibility to handle peak demand in a more rational way, by having additional capacity which can be deployed for specific tasks. For example, it may be that a given company has a large web site promotion which is due to come to an end. In addition, the result of the campaign has resulted in a significant increase in email messages received. As the number of "hits" on the website starts to fall off, spare capacity can be redeployed to deal with the additional volume of inbound email by reconfiguring the virtual appliances or by creating additional instances of the email security appliance and removing instances of the web site.
