Virtual reality

VMware’s FREDRIK SJOSTEDT offers his insight into the tangible benefits of virtualisation.

Cost is obviously a key area for consideration. What is your advice for companies finding it hard to calculate the cost benefits of virtualisation?

Fredrik Sjostedt. There are two ways to calculate cost savings from virtualisation. The first is to examine the CAPEX (capital expenditure) savings that can be realised from consolidating servers in the data centre. We see customers that have achieved consolidation ratios of 80:1, where 80 physical servers are converted into 80 'virtual machines' running on just one physical server. Even with normal ratios of 20:1, there is still always a very clear and tangible cost benefit.

The second way to calculate cost savings is much more of a challenge and that is to look at how you drive operational savings by using virtualisation. Many organisations fail to understand that if you continue to use the same procedures you did when running a physical infrastructure, most of your CAPEX savings will be lost to OPEX (operating expenditure) increases.

My advice is to start off using the VMware TCO calculators to help give a view of your current cost base and to see how much CAPEX can be saved almost immediately. Then you need to engage with your normal systems integrator or VMware's PSO team to review the current processes you have in place and develop new plans and processes to control operational expenditure and accelerate savings in the longer term.

Business agility is a key concern for C-level executives right now. Does virtualisation offer the potential for enhanced enterprise agility and what benefits does it offer in this regard?

FS. Virtualization is often thought of as simply server consolidation and a CAPEX saving technology. This is far from the truth. C-Level executives need to understand the wider benefits that virtualisation can deliver, when the technology is used well. Firstly, look at how long it takes to roll out a new IT capability, such as a database server. After making the decision that the capability is needed, you need to procure the hardware, take delivery of it, install and test it, and then put it into pre-production, before it's finally rolled out into the production environment. I've seen customers take as long as 27 weeks to get through this process. If your competitor can deploy faster than this, then you have lost the competitive edge, as they would be able to go to market with their solution faster. Virtualisation can help you to slash the time that the entire process takes, from decision-making to rolling out a production capability, down to just a few hours. Clearly, this is something that appeals to any C-level executive looking for agility. Secondly, virtualisation can also help to maximise the availability of your IT resources. This is important, as there are very few organisations today that are not heavily dependant on IT for day-to-day operations.

Virtualisation allows organisations to transform an IT infrastructure that is built on minimizing downtime to one that is uninterrupted and 100 percent available at all times. Again, this is a very attractive benefit for business leaders.

In your opinion, what is the future of virtualisation?

FS. Virtualisation is one of those really disruptive technologies that come around every-so-often. As organisations continue to look closely at how they manage their cash flow in order to remain competitive in challenging market conditions, they also now need to start examining how they strategically prepare for the mid-to-long term as well. The recession will end and organisations that have used the recession to successfully re-structure and streamline their processes will be far stronger and more competitive as the recovery picks up pace. IT is such an important component in most organisations today, and therefore transforming IT from a 'cost centre' to a 'business enabler' can have an absolutely massive impact on performance.

We have already seen some tremendous success stories where virtualisation has delivered huge benefits to organisations in terms of cost savings, better processes and increased agility. However, as mentioned above, these have mainly been little more than server consolidation programmes. Over the next 12-24 months, we will begin to see the other, wider, and potentially greater advantages that virtualisation can bring about, both in terms of data centre processes and desktop management. Virtualisation really will allow organisations to transform their IT and energise their entire business operations.

Fredrik Sjostedt is Director for EMEA Product Marketing at VMware. Sjostedt has almost 20 years of experience in the IT industry, gathered in both technical and marketing roles with hardware/software vendors like Apple, 3Com and Symantec. He studied systems analysis and mathematics at Lund University in Sweden and holds a postgraduate diploma in Management from Henley Business School in the UK.