Benefits and potential of virtualized infrastructures

As organizations better understand the benefits and potential of virtualized infrastructure, they can consider its use for mission-critical business application workloads. When implemented using standardized modular architectures, virtualization not only saves money, it also improves service levels for all workloads. As the data center approaches full virtualization, the business can realize significant cost and agility benefits by increasing automation levels and transitioning to a model that delivers IT as a service: a dynamic, scalable, secure infrastructure that is cost-efficient, easy to manage, and transforms IT from a perceived cost center to an enabler of the customer’s business.

Four technology initiatives occur simultaneously to support the transformation of the data center. The first initiative is focused on consolidation and achieving cost savings by addressing inefficiencies in network, servers, and storage infrastructure. The second technology initiative focuses on pervasive virtualization of business applications and production environments, with improved business agility being the primary goal. The third initiative involves the standardization of technology and operational processes to increase predictability and efficiency and prepare for the final initiative – automation – which reduces the manual effort involved in operations to increase productivity and speed time-to-deployment, thereby allowing true delivery of IT as a service to internal and external customers. While the enhanced automation capabilities are truly the catalyst that ultimately frees IT resources from the tedium of maintenance tasks, efficiencies in the consolidation and pervasive virtualization stages can also influence greater levels of innovation for the business.

Knowing that data center transformation will ultimately provide your organization with increased efficiencies and business agility, it is pivotal to not view these four initiatives as completely independent, but as interconnected stages of a larger journey. The technology decisions you make at the consolidation phase can accelerate or impede your success at the virtualization and automation phases.