Taking a company into cloud computing may not be such a big transition as some first think.

A shortcut to such a move could already be sitting in corporate data centres, waiting on standby to ease the changeover. Virtualisation-ready servers running in data centres can help pave the way using cloud computing in many companies.

"Virtualisation is the first step," Laura DiDio, Information Technology Intelligence Consulting's principal analyst, recently said.

"It gets you in a cloud state of mind and it gets you thinking about things that are important, like easier maintenance, lower costs, improved reliability and better scalability."

The virtualisation process happened as a result of businesses undertaking server consolidation projects over the last ten years. This allowed companies to cut costs, reduce the amount of maintenance required and save on floor space.

The consolidation process means companies are more integrated with virtualisation than they are with the cloud at the moment - yet it is also the doorway to cloud deployment.

"So cloud computing is a natural outgrowth of virtualisation," DiDio added.

"The idea is that you're sharing things. It's using multiple servers on a digital network as though it were one computer."

Using virtualisation as a stepping stone to cloud computing is a growing recent trend.

Many third-party IT solutions providers currently offer similar software and services for their cloud and virtualisation options, in order to better facilitate those looking toward the cloud. Therefore, businesses have been hedging their bets on the cloud by first deploying virtualised solutions.

Written by

Chris Tate

Virtualisation: A half-step to the cloud