According to widely published Gartner data, about 16% of workloads were virtualized in 2009. Although we can attribute some of that percentage to the usual early technology adopters and IT-savvy companies, researchers conservatively estimate that 50% of workloads will be virtualized by 2012. Eventually, small, midsize, and large enterprises alike will adopt virtualization.

This certainty stems from the irrefutable benefits of virtualization: Virtualization offers more efficient and higher utilization of IT resources. Traditionally, applications have run on dedicated servers. Most of those servers run at very low levels of utilization, often in the single digits—almost always below 20% and rarely above 50%, even in best-case scenarios.

Virtualization, on the other hand, offers organizations the ability to run multiple applications on a single server. Each application runs as a protected virtual machine (VM), sharing resources like CPU and memory. This approach yields 80% or greater server utilization rates, which provides companies with significantly higher ROI on their server investments.

Companies can also consolidate servers when implementing a virtualization solution, reducing the number of physical servers they need to operate, manage, and support —thereby lowering the total cost of ownership of their servers. Fewer servers—even when running at higher levels of utilization—consume less energy and require less cooling, so companies also reduce energy costs.

So while all the evidence points toward virtualization delivering clear benefits, there are also a number of challenges associated with it as well. In particular, data backup and disaster recovery become more complex, and while the traditional methods will work, there are some better options available.

Traditionally, IT administrators implement backup and recovery by installing a backup agent on each server. But in a virtualized environment, you could have as many as 10, 15, or even 20 VMs on a single physical server. To employ this method in a virtualized environment, you’d need to purchase and install a backup agent on each and every VM. Plus, backup applications usually require significant I/O, CPU, and memory resources. Because virtualized servers run at much higher levels of utilization, they have fewer cycles available for backup, which can cause unacceptably long backup windows. With these complications combined, the traditional approach doesn’t really make sense in virtualized environments.

To achieve backup and recovery on virtualized servers, you could save a copy of each VM and store it somewhere on the network where you can recover it if needed. In fact, many companies employ this very method, although it does present its own problems. Specifically, you can’t restore individual files without restoring the entire VM. And usually, you don’t want to recover the entire VM—just individual files that need to be reconstituted after someone inadvertently corrupted them.

Virtualization encapsulates everything in the VM, which is part of its allure. For example, you have the freedom to move copies of your VMs between servers that you have scattered around the network. While this mobility is useful in some circumstances, it also presents consistency complications when it comes to backup and recovery.

Fortunately, the industry is rapidly developing a variety of approaches to this problem, so you can reap the benefits of virtualization without compromising backup and disaster recovery. Learn more about data protection in a virtualized environment, and make sure you’re covered!