Like many new technologies, virtualization was originally embraced as a way to reduce capital and operational expenses. After all, consolidating server workloads onto fewer pieces of equipment means fewer in-house resources for IT management and maintenance. Virtualization also allows organizations to reduce heating and cooling costs and extract maximum value from their data center resources.
Many organizations have since recognized how virtualization can create a more agile IT environment in which the deployment of applications is accelerated. As such, virtualization enables organizations to bring products and services market faster and quickly take advantage of new business opportunities. This ability to deliver revenue-producing business value and competitive advantage has elevated IT from a collection of computer hardware, software and applications to a strategic asset.
Virtualization Needs IT Automation
In order to maximize efficiency and agility, automation must be part of the virtualization equation. Even the best IT team on the planet can’t effectively support strategic initiatives when they’re constantly tied up with day-to-day, repetitive tasks such as monitoring, provisioning and workload balancing.
IT Automation in a virtualized environment enables organizations to:
- Boost productivity by maintaining optimal network performance and availability
- Accelerate ROI from IT investments
- Speed the deployment of new applications and services
- Ensure regulatory compliance and simplify reporting
- Reduce the risk of human error
Here’s the catch.
If the systems within the virtualized environment – compute, networking and storage – are out of sync and functioning independently of one another, management is much more complex and automation becomes a nightmare.
Just like they say in computer programming: If you automate a mess, you get an automated mess.
Virtualization Also Needs Orchestration
The next step toward taking full advantage of virtualization and the cloud is orchestration.
Orchestration brings all the pieces together so that they can be managed as an integrated whole with workflows based upon best practices.
With orchestration, all components are viewed holistically as part of one ecosystem that is aligned with business objectives and managed through a single interface. The infrastructure can be scaled up or down on demand through automated provisioning and change management that adheres to defined policies and service levels.
This approach improves collaboration, making it possible to develop best practices for the entire environment in order to speed the delivery of services and quickly adapt to changing market conditions and business needs. Orchestration also enables organizations to make better use of its IT resources and reduce costs by eliminating the need for manual management of services.
Going Virtual
Organizations can achieve significant cost savings and business agility through virtualization, but their IT environment must be well-orchestrated in order to streamline management and accelerate service delivery.
Let Technologent help you develop a strategic approach to orchestration so you can realize the full business benefits of virtualization.
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