Final answer:
A and d. Virtualizing servers primarily improves hardware resource utilization and maintenance practices, allowing more efficient use of server resources and easier management compared to physical servers.
Step-by-step explanation:
The correct answer is options a and d: Better hardware resource utilization and Easier maintenance.
Virtualizing servers presents multiple benefits. Firstly, it allows for better hardware resource utilization, meaning that the physical server's resources such as its CPU, memory, and storage can be allocated across multiple virtual servers. This efficiency reduces the amount of wasted resources and can decrease costs.
Additionally, virtualized environments facilitate easier maintenance. Patching, upgrading, or modifying server environments can be done without significantly disrupting operations, which is less cumbersome than managing these tasks on physical servers. Maintenance tasks can often be automated, further simplifying the process.
While some might think better performance and low RAM requirement are benefits, these are not guaranteed with virtualization. Performance may vary depending on the configuration and workload, and virtualization can potentially require more RAM since each virtual server needs its share of memory to operate effectively.