Deep Freeze vs Virtualization: Why Reboot-to-Restore Still Matters in 2025

Virtualization can unlock major efficiency gains and cost savings. But the technology isn’t without its risks. Learn about the benefits and security vulnerabilities of virtualization and discover how Reboot-to-Restore technology can help.

What Is Virtualization?

Virtualization is a technology that enables the creation of virtual environments from a single physical machine. This can allow for a more efficient use of resources by generating virtual representations of hardware, such as servers, storage and networks. Virtualization utilizes software solutions called hypervisors to create multiple virtual computers, known as virtual machines (VMs), on a single physical machine. 

VMs can access each part of the physical machine, including memory, processors and storage.

Every VM can run on its own operating system, so each one functions as a separate machine. Even though all VMs share the resources of the same physical machine, they’re all their own de facto workstations. This means a single physical workstation can perform numerous tasks simultaneously on different VMs instead of multiple computers running a single task each.

Virtualization Benefits

Many organizations utilize virtualization to their benefit. But just what are those benefits? Among the most prominent are:

• Cost savings: Virtualization can maximize the efficacy of hardware while reducing the need for physical computers and servers. Virtualization allows businesses to save money on hardware costs and reduce expenditures on related processes, such as cooling and maintaining hardware.

• • Disaster recovery: Virtualization can make disaster recovery easier — with the right tools, that is. More on this later.

• Efficiency: Traditionally, a company would need multiple computers to run different applications. With virtualization, this isn’t necessary. That company can simply operate multiple applications on different VMs, with the same physical server housing all of them. This set-up requires less-intensive IT management and more efficient utilization of resources.

• • Improved scalability: Virtualization allows for the quick creation or removal of VMs. This makes it easier to scale tech resources up or down as necessary.

• Less maintenance: With a single console managing numerous VMs, IT management is simpler. An IT team can have additional time to focus on more productive, strategic tasks instead of tedious updates and ongoing maintenance.

• Reduced environmental footprint: With less hardware and maintenance comes reduced energy consumption. This is a positive for a business’s utility bill and its carbon footprint.

Virtualization Drawbacks

Nothing is perfect, and virtualization has some associated negatives. These include:

• Complexity: Virtualization simplifies IT management … but the technology itself can be quite complex. It can be difficult for organizations with limited resources and IT knowledge to implement virtualization effectively.
• Initial costs: Many companies save money with virtualization, but the initial setup and implementation can be expensive. Organizations must pay for virtualization software, upgrade existing hardware and train IT staff.

• • Interdependency: With numerous VMs relying on one physical server, the failure of that server can lead to all the VMs going down as well. This underlines the need for a comprehensive disaster recovery plan.

• Performance: It’s possible to overload a server with too many VMs. An overloaded server will run slowly and frustrate staff.

• Security risks: This is a big one. With virtualization, strong cybersecurity measures are necessary to preserve the entire setup. These include firewalls, intrusion detection and especially disaster recovery. If one virtual machine becomes compromised, other VMs on the same server might also be affected.

What Is Deep Freeze?

Deep Freeze by Faronics is a solution that can make any workstation — even virtual ones and the physical server on which they run — indestructible. Organizations can implement Deep Freeze on premises or in the cloud. Deep Freeze provides password protection and complete security, protecting multiple hard drives and partitions. It can also prevent configuration drift and accidental system misconfiguration, maintaining software compliance across all workstations.

How Deep Freeze Can Help Virtualization

The key feature of Deep Freeze is Reboot-to-Restore technology. This function resets a workstation to a predetermined safe state every time you reboot it. You turn the computer off and back on, and it’s the same as it ever was. You don’t have to worry about an outside threat injecting malware or ransomware during the last session or about a staff member accidentally making an unauthorized change.

Not only is this true for individual computers, it’s true for machines that support one or more VMs. If the physical computer is compromised, they all could be. But with Reboot-to-Restore, you just switch the physical machine off and on, and they’re all clear again. Please reach out to our experts today to learn more about how Deep Freeze can protect virtualization setups and more.