“Server virtualization” means the method of running multiple independent applications or operating systems on a single physical machine. According to officials of Equisys, it is used as “a means of enhancing physical resources to maximize the investment in hardware, where the server administrator uses a software application to divide one physical server into multiple isolated virtual environments.”

The advantage is that server virtualization brings the possibility of sharing hardware between multiple server applications, Equisys officials say, “with each application believing it is running on its own computer with no risk of one application causing another to fail.” This means disk intensive applications can be matched with CPU heavy ones in order to get the maximum out of each piece of server hardware, they say.

Of course this brings up another question: How does fax virtualization work?

As Equisys officials explain, “in a virtualized environment, server applications and their virtualized operating systems access the underlying hardware through a virtualization layer. Communications hardware (such as a fax board) is typically not supported in this virtualized world.”

This means any server application that needs to use such hardware requires an alternative approach -- “this obstacle often results in fax servers being maintained separately from an organization's virtualized environment. With Fax Over IP (FoIP) this is no longer necessary.”

In October TMC’s (News - Alert) Erin Harrison reported that fax over IP provider Equisys has deployed new software that will help its document production and delivery technology work more efficiently.

Enea (News - Alert), a developer of global software and services company focused on solutions for communication-driven products, recently announced that Equisys will deploy the company’s Netbricks IAF-Bricks technology.

According to Enea officials, IAF-Bricks combines all the telecommunications protocols (T.30, T.38 and SIP) required to implement fax over IP, reducing the amount of implementation work required, while guaranteeing high-levels of interoperability.