It’s a new year, and it’s time to start thinking about what information technology will look like in 2017. That could mean anything from forecasting the costs of adopting new technology to upgrading your products to better integrate with new trends.

We’ll just go ahead and say it: cloud migration is a smart business move and we highly recommended it. The potential for greater efficiency, more manageable storage capacity, and cost savings are all but guaranteed. Virtualization, however, is not a walk in the clouds.

2016 saw containerization (container-based virtualization) take off as a way for companies to utilize virtual platforms more efficiently. While containers use less resources than their virtual machine (VM) counterparts, performance differences are subtle and don't necessarily make containers better.

When it comes to doing business today, it is all about computers and virtual platforms. The idea of a virtual desktop or virtual machine has long been a major component of doing business and providing employees individualized access to the information and programs necessary to do their work.

There is a trend toward the use of ‘containers’ as a virtualization strategy within the IT world. And it's one that seems to be gaining popularity. Virtual containers work in similar fashion to shipping containers, which have made transport of bulky goods uncomplicated and uniform.

Microsoft’s Edge browser has enhanced its security features with new virtualization protocols. By running the browser inside a virtual container, it keeps web content totally separate from the Edge browser and your hard drive. Although it's a much smaller scale than what we are used to seeing out of Microsoft’s virtualization strategies, this is a gigantic boost to Windows’s native internet browser.

Almost every day, the virtualization industry takes a giant leap forward. Although this industry has been reserved for only the most technologically advanced of businesses over the years, it’s spreading like wildfire with advances in cloud computing.

Sometimes technology solutions seem safer merely because they’re not widespread enough to be a lucrative target. Although increasingly popular, virtualization’s resilient protection protocols and low adoption rates tend to offset the cost vs. benefit considerations of creating an exploit.

Citrix is one of the biggest names in the virtualization sector. It currently services over 330,000 organizations, and by teaming up with Microsoft to expand its cloud-based software delivery, the company hopes to give that number a boost. While the news of this partnership does mean winding down one popular software as a service, a newer -- and hopefully better -- one is on its way.

With virtualization yet to make its way into the lexicon of common tech phrases, many business owners are still trying to decipher the full extent of its value. Various aspects of the service have evolved over time, and we can probably expect more to come.