Business owners stand to gain a lot by taking the time to understand emerging IT trends. In the case of containers, it’s an opportunity to reduce costs, increase hardware efficiency, and improve data security. One of the best ways to learn about containers is to address the misconceptions about them.

Mobile device management is a full-fledged subset of IT security. Employees store and view sensitive data on their smartphones, which exposes your organization to a significant amount of risk. Although there are plenty of great solutions for managing this, the National Security Agency (NSA) believes mobile virtualization is the next big thing.

Virtualization is becoming so popular that businesses are finally seeing the technology being packaged with the solutions they already know and love. The Windows operating system is a great example of a solution that grants you access to features like containers and software-defined storage.

Malware is becoming more sophisticated every day, and we recommend several solutions for dealing with it. One of the most interesting of these is achievable via cutting-edge virtualization technology. Often referred to as sandboxing, this solution is a great way to quarantine and test suspicious applications before exposing them to your entire network.

Whether or not you understand virtualization, there’s a good chance you’ve never had a hands-on experience with a virtualized desktop. As one of the most basic applications of virtualization technology, network-based desktops are the perfect example of how businesses can benefit from any form of virtualization.

We’ve talked about network virtualization on this blog before, but there was some recent confusion over whether or not that service is different from software-defined networking. It’s not a big difference, but no, they’re not the same. Let’s take a look at what sets them apart.

Implementing a virtualized data storage solution at your business is no small feat. It’s a complicated process that requires immense amounts of technical expertise. Unfortunately, getting it up and running is only half the battle. For the most efficient solution possible, watch out for the three most common management issues outlined in this post.

Virtualization is great, but it is awfully confusing. And although the whole point of hiring a managed services provider is to hand off these issues to the experts, we believe a cursory understanding is helpful for everything, including bragging to competitors and making executive decisions.

Investing in technology requires a lot of forethought and research. Successful business owners know that it isn’t just seeing an ad on your sidebar and signing up for untested services or solutions, it’s about making an educated decision. What better time is there to sit down, review the current state of technology, and decide where to place your bets for 2017? When you’re ready for that, take a look at our insider projections on where web services will be heading for the coming year.