Pooling (resource management)


In resource management, pooling is the grouping together of resources for the purposes of maximizing advantage or minimizing risk to the users. The term is used in finance, computing and equipment management.

Finance

Pooling is the grouping together of assets, and related strategies for minimizing risk. Debt instruments with similar characteristics, such as mortgages, can be pooled into a new security, for example:
Pooling IT resources involves virtualization of typical IT stacks server, storage and networking. Users benefit from lower individual investments since resources are shared. Although shared infrastructures have huge benefits potential issues on the environment have impact on the complete environment. A thorough analysis of the infrastructure is recommended to identify potential single point of failure. One may opt for 'private' instances for specific needs or for specific reasons. On the level of resource pooling, bigger suppliers tend to have the benefit of being able to provide shared support environments with round the clock service. Do you prefer access to a service desk round the clock with potential less expertise or do you want to rely on a single support engineer "
The resource management concepts of pooling can easily be abstracted and virtualized:

Equipment

Pooling of equipment is used to maintain "ready for use" equipment while damaged or dirty equipment is repaired and cleaned, by replacing it with an identical piece of equipment from the pool.

Automotive