Pooling is a resource management term that refers to the grouping together of resources (assets, equipment, personnel, effort, etc.) for the purposes of maximizing advantage and/or minimizing risk to the users. The term is used in many disciplines.
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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:
Computing
Pooling IT (equipment and staff) resources involves virtualization of typical IT stacks server, storage and networking (but also on the level of datacenter power and cooling). 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 SPOFs. One may opt for 'private' instances (private clouds) 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 (who is 'on duty' during off peak hours)"
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.