Virtualization is now a core infrastructure component. It’s plumbing – the customer doesn’t need to know how the water is delivered, but the fact that it’s coming faster, more easily, and in more reliable ways is the key to success.

Technology solutions are built on platforms, and they need to deliver business value or they quickly become irrelevant. Virtualization is no different and it should be viewed as another solution platform--one baked into the way technology delivers solutions.

Often, server consolidation is cited as the reason to view virtualization. While powerful, I don’t believe it’s the lead story for most customers. If you’re looking for ways to discuss services and options with customers, or within your organization, only use server virtualization when it’s clear that there is value, since consolidating servers doesn’t have the same return on investment for all organizations.

Virtualization offers other high value benefits. For example, in an environment where the business is critically dependent on its IT infrastructure, then it makes sense to focus on ensuring that the system is available, maximizing the investment.  This need must be balanced with cost, however.

It’s been my experience that in some organizations, hardware systems are not upgraded nearly as often as they should be. Customers often delay upgrading IT infrastructures. Routine system upgrades, such as replacing aging hardware, can require a considerable investment in time and effort, which translates into cost for the customer or organization. Additionally, it’s often true that the three-year hardware upgrade cycle does not overlap with the software upgrade cycle. As a result, many questions arise. Should a company extend the hardware warranty to correspond with the software upgrade? What if more disk space or faster processing is needed? Does a new LOB application require more hardware?

Virtualization solves this missing link between hardware and software. In a world where the server is virtualized, a portable bubble is created that can be moved easily. Need to update or replace hardware. Slide it over easily. Need a bigger server to support a new line of business (LOB) application. Slide it over. 

An IT infrastructure with a high degree of flexibility is often very critical, particularly for organizations experiencing rapid growth. In these types of quick development situations, cash is king and critical. The customer may not want to invest in a server that will be the right size in two years, but may have the need for an immediate software upgrade. By using virtualization, we can offer our customers the ability to operate with a much more flexible infrastructure – and virtualization achieves this without soaring IT implementation costs. 

I advocate that every server solution deployed be delivered virtualized, unless there is a business case against it. This is the inverse of the way “things used to be.” Rather than consider “if we virtualize,” organizations should always be virtualizing and only choosing to not implement a virtualization solution when there is a business reason not to. 

Comments:

Add Your Comment

Name: Company name:

Email:

(We will never sell your name or e-mail address to anyone)

Comment:

Remember my personal information
Notify me of follow-up comments?

Please enter the word you see in the image below: