People buy insurance to protect prized possessions — their cars, homes and even beloved pets. But the one valuable they consistently neglect to insure? Their digital data, including family photos, medical records and other personal details that would be tough to live without.

Virtualization technology is all the rage — and not just for big business. With small and medium-sized businesses alone shelling out an estimated $1.2 billion a year on virtualization, here's a look at the latest insights into how virtualization bolsters any business:

If you’ve ever had a device crash, taking all your data with it, you know how painful the experience can be. When that happens on a large scale, the effects can be devastating. Data loss costs the average business $586,000 a year, and that doesn't address the personal, emotional and cultural costs of losing everything from financial data to great works of art. The worst part? It can easily be avoided.

In 2010, IDC forecasted that by 2014, 70 percent of all servers would become virtual. That prediction has largely come to bear, as Gartner estimates that Windows is now 60 to 70 percent virtualized, with Linux about 35 to 45 percent there. Moreover, between the legacy physical systems in place, the decline in server shipments and the large proportion of virtualized environments, hardly any system shipped today is not virtual.