It might be a term that leaves the layman baffled, but virtualization technology has been around since the 1960s. In computing, virtualization refers to the logical separation of compute power between different applications. It’s a little bit like multitasking on steroids in that it allows for a single physical machine to perform the roles of multiple computers simultaneously.

As companies become more reliant on modern technology, they’re rapidly changing the way they consume IT services. The rise of cloud services and mobile devices in the workplace has endowed businesses with many lucrative new opportunities. But it has also left internal IT departments bursting at the seams as they try to adapt to new technologies.

Meeting the demands of customers has never been as difficult as it is in today’s internet-driven environments. As changing customer habits drive the need for businesses to innovate as quickly as possible, progress can come to a grinding halt when resources are scarce, and the corporate technology landscape is more complicated than ever.

Every responsible computer user understands the need to backup their data, but things are a little more complicated in the business environment where mission-critical data is stored across many different systems and platforms.

In fact, data backup is just one aspect of disaster recovery.

Business technology is ridiculously complicated. Even after you’ve spent countless hours finding your way around the hype and figuring out what all the acronyms mean, that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily ready to temporarily fill the role of a CTO in your organization.