IT Roadmap

Desktop virtualization can create business value by improving the ability of organizations to manage their desktop environments, according to research firm IDC. Such moves, the firm adds, enable organizations to reduce desktop total cost of ownership (TCO), while enhancing security, availability, and agility.

IDC contends organizations can maximize the return on investment (ROI) associated with deploying desktop virtualization by:

• Focusing on the agility and flexibility that centralized virtual desktops can enable. The most successful desktop virtualization deployments are used to improve the flexibility and agility with which IT can respond to the needs of the overall business and tend to be deployed in instances where traditional management platforms are less effective, such as call center environments and offshore locations.

• Understanding the limitations of desktop virtualization. Centralized virtual desktops (and server-based computing as a whole) have specific limitations that will affect the ways in which the technology can be most effectively used. Those interested in leveraging desktop virtualization in their environments must fully understand those limitations in order to understand how and to whom an organization can best apply the technology.

• Providing sufficient time for piloting and testing. Organizations must set realistic expectations regarding the time it will take to deploy their environments because this will have an impact on the success of any project. Because desktop virtualization is relatively new and lacks best practices, pilots will need to be extensive in order to ensure that transitions to production environments occur smoothly.

Perhaps the most interesting finding in the report is its analysis showing that the cost of a desktop client falls dramatically as you factor in issues such as IT labor.

Hardware and software, according to IDC, "represent less than 20% of the cost of keeping an employee client enabled. The IT labor associated with installing, administering, and supporting the client represents over 80% of the annual client cost per user. And [desktop virtualization's] effect on reducing that labor requirement offers compelling arguments."

As the IDC analysts see it, desktop virtualization client users "require less than a third of the labor that users armed with traditional PCs require. Our studies showed that users enabled via [desktop virtualization] required 67% less support and administration labor than traditional PC-enabled users — $425 per user per year in IT labor versus $1,298."

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The hype around cloud computing is enormous. But the danger for IT decision makers is that they will get swept up in the mania and drawn into making investments that aren't particularly consistent with their business objectives.

Given these risks, Randy Heffner, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, is encouraging his clients to step back and take a few breaths. "Cloud is an important development in the landscape of computing options—to the point that most organizations will one day use cloud or cloud-like offerings—but there's no guarantee that cloud is right for your organization right now," he says.

While he recognizes that IT decision makers may be tempted to create their own "cloud strategies," he is discouraging it. As he sees it, enterprises can lose focus on what's important when they develop strategies around technology as opposed to business.

What's more, he sees "numerous tradeoffs" between cloud and traditional computing approaches. "Nearly every cloud solution has a functionally equivalent non-cloud alternative, so to maintain focus on your business, it is best to build your strategy around the business decisions to which each type of cloud offering is directed," he contends. "This approach fosters more level-headed consideration and comparison of cloud and non-cloud options, and it establishes a stronger foundation for a long-term evolution toward cloud and cloud-like options as they mature."

Heffner encourages IT decision makers to develop their business approaches around three major architecture strategies: computing infrastructure; application platform; and solution portfolio. 

"Rather than developing a siloed strategy for cloud, a business approach will integrate analysis of cloud and cloud-like options into each of these three strategies," he says. "Rather than asking architects to create a cloud strategy, CIOs should direct them to enhance existing strategies. This will include the development, within each strategy, of plans for evolving over the long-term as cloud offerings mature. This reframing away from cloud strategy is much more than semantics. By centering analysis and strategy on business problems and decisions," he explains, the IT decision maker:

• Frames the full range of business criteria by which to compare cloud and non-cloud options.
• Moves analysis away from theoretical definitions of what is and isn't "pure cloud," allowing more cogent analysis of cloud-like, hybrid, transitional, and traditional computing options.
• Allows clearer matching between the economic and risk profiles of a wide range of computing options and the business and financial dynamics of different business scenarios.

Heffner offers specific advice with regard to positioning cloud offerings in relation to concerns about infrastructure as a service, platform as a service and software as a service. But the bottom line is that IT must ensure the technology cart does not get in front of the business horse.

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Implementing data center virtualization and virtual server networks isn't as simple as install and done. One of the pivotal components is your network infrastructure. Although virtualization offers significant benefits when it comes to server and desktop deployment, management and utilization, the network requires some updates in business networks to be most effective at supporting the increased demands of virtualization.

Network optimization is critical in virtual environments.  If networks are not properly architected, with the required tools for management, virtual infrastructures can result in less efficiency and more cost. Something every IT department is tasked to avoid.

Following are 5 Questions to answer when planning network support for a virtual infrastructure:

• How will the change affect staffing requirements, and what will be the cost of added complexity, such as increased downtime to accomplish the migration?


• How will you manage your virtual network? While there might be fewer physical switches and routers, a virtualization strategy often means more logical, virtual devices that also have to be managed. Many traditional networking tools may not spot problems unless specifically created for a virtual environment.


• How will you simplify network management? Does your tool allowing IT professionals to interact with a virtual network in much the same way that they would interact with a physical network, such a product should make supporting server virtualization similar to what they already do.


• Can you scale to manage more and diverse devices? Moving to data center virtualization almost always decreases the number of physical servers, but the number of virtual storage servers, for example, can more than double. [International Data Corporation]


• How will you automate network tasks? Virtualization doesn't affect what network managers do, per se. But it does increase how often management tasks must be performed, while requiring more advance planning for capacity and network load balancing. Automation of these tasks is a key to improved efficiency.

Most experts agree that network planning is one of the most critical aspects of any Data Center Virtualization project.  That’s why having a partner that understands how business networks and virtualization work together is critical to success.

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As many enterprise IT departments begin the transition to virtualized data infrastructures, a few main challenges are leading the pack. 

A recent study of top IT executives ranked the top two challenges as:

1. C-level executives protecting tight budgets and
2. Software vendors that don't support their applications on virtualized servers.

It’s interesting to note that these issues ranked as top challenges whether transforming a legacy data center or building a new one.

The survey results also supported already well-known ideas that virtualized systems invariably save time, power and money once they're deployed.

"Virtualization has become a significant asset for IT, reducing time and cost of deploying new servers. However, the greatest challenge has been resistance from software vendors [reluctant] to support their applications on virtualized servers," one respondent said.

"I certainly believe that IT virtualization makes it easy to manage databases more efficiently and effectively," wrote another respondent. "However, we need to convince our top management—the decision-making point—with return on investment, the cost savings in hardware and reduced administration costs."

Finding good people with the right skills for the new generation of systems is another recurring problem, according to the report. Organizational challenges increasingly arise as participants plan to implement various virtualization strategies, requiring a variety of skill sets.

Three out of four respondents say tight budgets are the greatest issue their IT operation currently faces. Even when the economy improves and budgets become less constrained, there will still be challenges facing IT managers.  

Here are the Key Steps to Focus on When Planning Your Transition:

Take a hard look at your applications. If your mission critical applications aren’t virtual-ready, then build a plan to test virtual resources with applications that are virtualized. In the meantime, meet with your application vendors and develop a plan to configure their application for your needs. If you have custom applications, start developing the code you need to optimize them within a virtual deployment.

Create a compelling plan, and sell it. Great virtualization projects need fuel—and they need a plan. So focus on planning early in your process.

Create a plan that phases your deployment – starting with an early test, then a larger Proof of Concept (PoC), then a small production deployment followed by expanded roll out.

Set measures of success – show what the ROI will be for each phase and then demonstrate it. Tie budgetary support to meeting these measures so there’s a plan supported with a financial commitment.

Begin recruiting now – or train your teams. As with any architecture or technology, experience is vital to success. With a new architecture – you need training and expertise to get up to speed. So find the experts who can train your teams and invest up front.  You’ll be more successful in the long run.

By using the experiences of the leaders as examples, you can more easily move forward with your own virtualization deployments. Implementing data center virtualization doesn’t have to be a difficult transition. With the proper planning, budget and supporting expertise you’ll master “virtual” in no time.

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Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last five years, you’ve heard of server virtualization. If your organization has made a move to virtualize, you’ve probably realized the benefits of reducing hardware costs and consolidating underutilized machines. These are the areas that most organizations focus on from an ROI perspective, but they are not the only things to consider when it comes to reducing costs. 

Let’s look at three additional areas:

Productivity:
Administrators have done a good job of using tools and scripting to automate common tasks. Virtualization is a real game-changer in this realm. The ability to store templates, clone them, and stand-up and teardown machines in a matter of moments can save hours every week – possibly more in very active test and development environments. If a typical server build includes lots of additional tools and add-on software, then this process can be even faster because those tools can be included in the templates. 

Virtualization on common storage can reduce overhead for maintenance as well, as administrators may no longer need to spend long nights in the data center. Hardware maintenance and refresh can be done without disruption, with less risk, and in some cases during normal working hours.

Secondary Hardware Costs:
Another cost pool to consider is your secondary hardware costs. Everything from KVM matrix switches, adding top-of-rack Ethernet switches, storage ports, power distribution units (PDUs) and even rack space.  The true cost of hosting a server in your data center is more than the cost of the box. 

Virtualization can eliminate many of these costs.  KVMs are no longer needed; Ethernet and FC switch ports can be shared (and further consolidated through the use of converged network adapters and 10G-ethernet). Additional rack and PDU purchases may become unnecessary as you use existing space more efficiently.

Power and Cooling:
This is an area where most data center administrators don’t have much data. Power is usually not metered individually, and costs of operating air handlers are frequently not well understood. 

Here is an example: A typical lightly loaded 2U server purchased in the last three years may average approx 250 watts and produce approx 900 BTUs, or approx 263 watts of cooling.  So this server uses 513 watts for power and cooling.  If my cost for power is $.10/KWh, I’m spending approximately $1.23 per day to power and cool one server. With 100 such servers, spending on power and cooling is $123.00/day, or $44.938.80 per year.

The same calculation after consolidating these 100 servers onto high capacity virtual servers could reduce monthly costs by more than half in this example.

When considering your virtualization ROI and total costs, it is important to expand your scope to include these other areas in your ROI analysis. The additional savings from improved IT productivity, lower secondary hardware costs and reduced power and cooling expenses can be impressive. By looking farther than the usual factors that play into ROI, your company can put the icing on the virtualization cake.

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