A hundred years ago, some peddlers sold ‘snake oil’ to unsuspecting people to cure all kinds of ills. These days, ‘virtualisation’ or ‘replicate to cloud’ can be equally attractive to companies under pressure, but there are things to be cautious about, says Ray Stride, MD, Global Continuity South Africa, part of the Metrofi le group.

“Virtualisation makes data recovery easier, and gives you additional options, such as hosting IT services at multiple locations, and being able to replicate between them, and move from one piece of hardware to the next. It makes things easier, but it’s not the full solution,” says Stride. “Virtualisation’s main limitation currently is fi nding the hardware capacity you need, in the shape you need, and ensuring it’s at the right location.”