(Bob Violino, Accelerate) Virtualization isn’t just for large enterprises. Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are finding that virtualizing servers can be a viable IT strategy. And although server consolidation is the primary reason many organizations are initially attracted to virtualization technology, it’s hardly the only driver.

Why else does it make sense for SMBs to virtualize? Here are five reasons from the experts—your IT peers and industry analysts.

1. Effective disaster recovery. Virtualization enables companies to create contingencies in the event of system failures.
“The number 1 reason for virtualization—besides consolidation—is disaster recovery,” says Gary Chen, senior analyst, enterprise research, at the Yankee Group. “Most SMBs don’t have disaster recovery capabilities, or even if they do have some sort of disaster recovery, it’s not that good.” Virtualization, by giving companies greater flexibility for running applications and storing data, provides options in the event of a systems outage. “It really gives SMBs a good shot at enterprise-class disaster recovery,” Chen says. “Recovery times for servers are less than an hour, and it’s pretty affordable.”

2. Optimized server utilization. Virtualization enables organizations to get more-efficient use out of server hardware.
“You can dynamically allocate memory and CPUs  to servers as needed,” says Brad Manning, CIO at Quaker Chemical Corp. in Conshohocken, Pa. “Development and test servers are great examples. They often sit idle, in which case their resources can be allocated to production virtuals and then have short bursts of activity intermittently when they need resources. This means more bang for your buck in your data center spending and better performance for your business applications.”