Your customers likely aren’t getting the full benefits of virtualisation, says Phill Patton, EMC New Zealand country manager.

Virtualisation is no longer a novel concept and it underpins the cloud computing models of companies everywhere.

But just how well are your customers using virtualisation to optimise computing resource availability and usage? Chances are, there is some virtualisation going on – but the concept isn’t implemented as well as it should be.

That’s because many small to medium size category organisations, for various reasons don’t always have the best approach to computing in general. After all, running the technology systems isn’t the core business – but getting the technology running better supports improved operational performance.

Is this your customer?

While many businesses are realising the benefits of virtualisation, they often lack a comprehensive strategy that consistently addresses the needs of IT operations and critical applications.

Only when operational teams and processes are optimised for virtualisation will its promise of flexibility be realised; only when data security, data protection and compliance concerns are addressed will application stakeholders be comfortable with virtualisation.

The challenge is one of maturity and execution. Finding time for such a fundamental transformation of IT is difficult when budgets are tight, and day-to-day tasks consume so much effort.

Transition to a virtual data center

With a comprehensive approach to virtualisation, the advantages include cost savings, improved service delivery to the business and the establishment of a sound foundation for more widespread use of cloud computing.

A virtual data center, where computing resources aren’t bound to specific hardware devices, becomes dynamic and self-aware, enabling the seamless transfer of workloads.

It eliminates today's complex provisioning models and synchronises the network to the compute environment.

Achieving these outcomes depends on overcoming complexity and operational issues which can stand in the way of achieving maximum benefits. Your strategy should start by establishing the business case and rationalising applications against business processes.

The virtual architecture and roadmap should include applications, compute, storage and network resources.

Operational processes should be converted to a virtual operating model, which meets protection service level requirements.

Beyond virtualisation

Successfully applying virtualisation to build a private cloud goes beyond the isolated or limited deployments of virtualisation technology in your customer’s environment.

It depends on assessing and understanding the impact that virtualisation has on IT operations.

That means due consideration to security, resource management and disaster recovery. Operational processes such as capacity management, provisioning, change management and backup should also come into sharp focus.

With a comprehensive strategy, you can expand the benefits of virtualisation already seen in the limited deployments and sandboxes in organisations – and unlock the full advantage of the technology that fundamentally underpins the cloud.