Uncover the Full Value of Virtualization

If you’re serious about reducing infrastructure costs, chances are you’ve already implemented a virtualization solution. But after enjoying the immediate cost reductions virtualization delivers, it's time to dig deeper for even greater savings. There’s a lot to be gained by optimizing virtual machines to fit your environment and expanding the reach of your efforts— especially as your needs change.

Putting the Processes in Place

Once you’ve started a migration to virtual servers, it’s time to focus on process improvement.  Create a streamlined management system to fully capitalize on your virtualization investment. Dynamic workload management is an excellent way to get the most performance out of your physical servers, enabling you to achieve a much higher ROI. Other processes to focus on managing include:

• Configuration management: Achieve greater control over the contents of your virtual machines
• Capacity planning: Know what your organization wants to accomplish with virtualization and plan your infrastructure to deliver those results.
• Performance and availability: Understand the capabilities and limitations of your virtual machines versus traditional infrastructure to make a case for virtualizing.
• Real-time automation: Realize greater efficiency and productivity with reliable automation.

Teamwork Isn’t Hard Work

Another useful strategy for streamlining processes is to create a collaborative virtual infrastructure management team. Assemble a team with expertise from various backgrounds, including storage, server, networking, and other fields. Virtualization is such a far-reaching technology that it’s important to have everyone in the department on the same page—making it much easier to spot opportunities to improve service.