The past two decades have seen a migration to a decentralized computing model with companies globally distributing their
operations. As a result, the amount of data and IT assets stored outside of corporate data centers has risen significantly, and IT
managers are now increasingly looking to consolidate their IT infrastructure. Organizations have embraced the benefits of IT
consolidation in an effort to reduce complexity, lower costs, improve resource utilization, and protect their data. In more recent
years, the term virtualization has also become synonymous with IT consolidation as an enabler of simplified IT administration
and improved resource management.