Virtualization technology 2.0: Current and future trends for IT

What does the CIO need to know? From budget tips and licensing strategies to cloud computing components and disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) techniques, find out what virtualization is today and what it means for your IT organization.

For free advice and resources on more IT and business topics, visit our list of Midmarket CIO Briefings.

Table of contents

• Building a virtual infrastructure: Strategies and lessons learned
• Tips for budgeting and negotiating virtualization contracts
• Virtualizing desktops and storage
• Using virtualization for DR and BC
• Preparing for cloud computing services in virtualization
• Evaluating virtualization tools
• More resources

Building a virtual infrastructure --   strategies and lessons learned

Table of Contents

Server virtualization has resulted in cost savings and efficiencies through server consolidation, so what's next in a virtualization strategy?

Storage, networking components and security are a few areas that midmarket companies are going to want to tackle next if they are on the path to developing a virtual environment, while also morphing IT into a service organization.

But there are a few housekeeping items that should be checked off before an organization sets out to mature its server virtualization strategy:

• Invest in virtual machine management.
• Establish service-level agreements for the virtual environment.
• Allow self-service provisioning.

Learn about each of these strategies and more in "Beyond consolidation: Next steps in a server virtualization strategy." Also:

• Virtualization project success factors from CIOs
  Virtualization projects of all kinds are on the agenda or under way for CIOs this year. Find out what the Real Niel's "network of nerds" recommends before you start your project.
• Desktop and application virtualization: Lessons learned
  Thinking about introducing desktop and application virtualization? Experts share tips.
• Virtualization technology creates hosts of problems for midmarket IT shops
  Virtualization technology provides fast and furious ROI, but its speed introduces new challenges.

Tips for budgeting and negotiating   virtualization contracts

Table of Contents

The good news is that many software vendors are embracing licensing terms that favor running their software in a virtual environment.

Microsoft and IBM have moved away from tying their software licenses to physical devices or processors -- which makes it difficult to move around a virtual machine without buying additional licenses -- in favor of software virtualization licensing terms based on virtual processors that, in turn, allow for VM mobility.

On the other hand, a lot of software virtualization licensing restrictions still exist as far as virtual machine (VM) mobility and virtualizing different vendors' software on the same physical box. It is up to the customer to be aware of these restrictions while attempting to negotiate the most cost-effective software virtualization licensing terms.

Find out more in "Five ways to negotiate software virtualization licensing terms." Also:

• Budgeting for virtualization solutions
  Although virtualization solutions offer many benefits, they come with a price. In this podcast, find out how to minimize the cost of virtualization and still reap the benefits.

Virtualizing desktops and storage

Table of Contents

The use of virtualization technology, particularly for server consolidation, has led to some pretty impressive savings for midmarket companies. With those wins under their belt, CIOs are looking for additional benefits from further tuning their virtual server environments, as well as from storage and desktop virtualization.

Extra Space Storage, a self-service storage space provider with 685 facilities and 2,500 employees, exemplifies the benefits of consolidation through server virtualization. The firm saved $100,000 to $150,0000 on the cost of a new data center chiller alone after virtualizing 63 servers down to 46.

The company is using VMware ESX to reduce that number even further, from 46 to 15 servers in the coming year, as it strives to go green. The consolidation helps avoid costly UPS system upgrades as well, said Bill Hoban, CIO of Salt Lake City-based Extra Space Storage.

Learn more in "Virtualization technology use spreading into desktops and storage." Also:

• Tapping the cloud as a software testing service
  Software testing services in the cloud mean faster time to market and cost savings for application development, but watch out for these limitations.
• Use cloud computing to drive IT innovation
  Cloud computing is not just a cost cutter -- it's also a platform you can use to innovate with less risk.

Using virtualization for DR and BC

Table of Contents

For CIO Roland Etcheverry, disaster recovery begins -- and ends quickly -- with virtualized storage. In fact, storage -- liberated from physical machines and living on a storage area network (SAN) that is completely virtualized -- is the alpha and omega of the data center at Houston-based Champion Technologies Inc., where Etcheverry took over IT operations five years ago.

"We built our data center around the concept that there would be no box with storage that was not picking up from the SAN," Etcheverry said.

"All of our servers have enough storage on them to boot the operating system and load whatever application they are going to load, but everything else sits on the SAN," he said. The SAN contains images of the local drives of the data center's 200 to 250 servers, updating the images when they change.

"When you centralize your storage, the DR plan becomes simple -- not trivial, but simple conceptually -- and that was our plan from the beginning," Etcheverry said.

Find out more in "Virtualized storage and SANs drive disaster recovery plan." Also:

• Virtualization's next phase: DR, BC and cloud computing
  Virtualization in the midmarket is now used for mission-critical servers and services, disaster recovery and business continuity, and even cloud computing, says our CIO columnist..
• Disaster recovery plans solve bare-metal recovery problem via VMware
  Learn how a midmarket insurance company uses virtualization and replication to enable recovery of its Windows server farm in a reasonable time frame. A mainframe benefits, too.
• IT pro gets schooled in virtualizing a DR site
  There is a lot to be learned about using VMware Converter, configuring network connections and more when attempting to virtualize a disaster recovery site remotely.

Preparing for cloud computing services   in virtualization

Table of Contents

Why did Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. become an early adopter of cloud computing services, and how did it lay the groundwork for the move?

For almost two decades Amylin had no drugs to sell, but in 2004 that all changed with two FDA-approved drugs for diabetes and obesity. Company executives predicted that the company would become a $3 to $5 billion entity in five years and would need huge IT infrastructure scalability to support that growth.

The company already needed to refresh its 5-year-old hardware and had reached capacity and power limitations in its two data centers. It was running out of space and execs had to decide if it was time to build a new data center.

CIO Steve Phillpott addressed all these challenges by deciding to go with cloud computing services. But it took a lot of preparation before the business as a whole warmed to the idea.

Read more about adopting cloud computing services in "Laying the groundwork for cloud computing services adoption in 6 steps." Also:

• Cloud computing defies one definition, so here are a few of the latest
  Ask what cloud computing is, and you quickly get acronyms like SaaS, PaaS and HIaaS. Here's what they all mean.
• Cloud computing tips for getting started with next-gen IT capabilities
  Cloud computing experts tackle applications to steer clear of in the cloud and how CIOs can start putting cloud initiatives in place.
• Five questions to ask when planning a cloud architecture
  When mapping out your cloud computing architecture, ask these five critical questions before beginning your project.

Evaluating virtualization tools

Table of Contents

Microsoft has a half dozen or so options for customers interested in Hyper-V, but what is the most cost-effective version of Windows Server 2008 for midmarket companies that want it for server virtualization?

Part of the answer lies in what you want to use server virtualization technology for, and some lies in how many resources your servers are capable of supplying per virtual machine.

Microsoft Hyper-V is built into all versions of Windows Server 2008, but it is also available as a free standalone product and can be used with Microsoft's midmarket Essential Business Server.

Learn more about the prices and capabilities of some of the options in "Pricing out Windows Server 2008 for virtualization cost efficiency." Also:

• The VMware-Microsoft hypervisor battle continues
  Microsoft continues to preach that VMware ESX costs too much, especially now that Hyper-V R2 includes free Live Migration. Can VMware beef up ESXi free edition?
• A new breed of cloud provider? Real servers, EC2 prices
  J.P. Gagne says he can provide the EC2 experience without virtualization -- and performance-minded customers will flock to him because of that, he hopes.
• Rackspace pitches pricey private cloud
  With fenced-off servers running VMware, Rackspace's new twist on managed hosting hopes to ease big customers into the cloud.

More resources

Table of Contents

• Virtualization for the midmarket (SearchCIO-Midmarket.com resource center)
• VMware researched and organized (SearchVMware.com resource center)
• Virtual desktop strategies and architecture (SearchVirtualDesktop.com resource center)