15-May-08 1:00 PM CST

Legal Technology News Features Rafte Guidance on Virtualization

The article, "Is Your Law Firm Ready for Virtual Servers?" written by Rafte & Company Founder Dena Rafte is featured by Law.com's Legal Technology News. The article suggests that virtualization may be the way to go for small to midsized firms.

Rafte says the benefits of virtualization are clear: instead of servers running at 10 percent or less capacity at certain points in the day, virtual servers can share hardware resources -- raising your average usage rate and lowering hardware and support costs. What else?

Lower hardware investments. Instead of purchasing multiple servers, purchase a single, dual-core high-performance computing server and load the host operating system and virtual server software to create the virtual server environment.
Improved security. Server virtualization lets you isolate each server, so if a server is compromised by a virus, Trojan or other malevolent program, the other servers are isolated, protecting the data that resides on those servers. This gives you the security benefits of separate servers, with reduced hardware cost.
Easier restoration through greater consistency. Restoring a virtual server is easier than restoring a server running on dedicated hardware. The virtual server software hides the physical hardware from the virtual servers, which means the hardware platform is always consistent.
Reduced time to recovery. Server virtualization can significantly reduce the time it takes to access a remote disaster recovery site, especially if the virtual servers are pre-staged. Assuming you perform a virtual server image backup weekly to a remote disaster recovery site, and run a differential backup during the week, all you need to do is run a restore of the latest differential backup to make a "warm" site "hot."

Click here to read the story.

At Rafte & Company, we see this trend becoming more prevalent among small and medium-sized law firms, but this technology is not for every firm. Decision makers need to do their homework before switching to virtualized servers. If virtualization is mishandled, the approach can actually increase IT management complexity and increase the impact of failure. One failed physical server could take a number of hosted virtual servers down with it, crippling your firm’s ability to operate for a period of time.

Another caution is that the various virtualization-focused products and strategies may not seamlessly integrate. Doing so can lead to overlap and waste.

Of course, not every law firm has the technical expertise or internal resources to manage and operate its increasingly complex and expanding legal IT infrastructure – let alone capitalize on emerging technologies such as virtualization. That’s why managing partners are turning to Rafte & Company's Legal Technology Solutions for selective and integrated IT infrastructure, operations, and management sourcing and services. Rafte & Company's Legal Technology Solutions keep technology costs low, enables users to access an expert IT team with outstanding user support, and eliminates the hassles of hiring, training and retaining a qualified technology staff.

Through Rafte & Company’s Legal Technology Solutions, our team of experts can help your firm assess whether virtualization is a viable option for you.

For more information on Rafte & Company's Legal Technology Solutions, please call toll-free (800) 396-9390 or e-mail us to request at info@rafte.com.

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