Four proven shortcuts to virtualization ROI

By Rich Freeman

Here’s one thing at least that tough economic times haven’t changed: Businesses continue to exhibit a healthy appetite for virtualization. In fact, Stamford, Conn.-based analyst firm Gartner Inc. expects global spending on server and desktop virtualization software to jump from $1.9 billion in 2008 to $2.7 billion in 2009, a 43 percent increase.

IT executives remain hungry for fast returns on their technology investments too. Indeed, today’s tighter IT budgets have made speedy ROI a higher priority than ever.

Put it all together and you end up with legions of newcomers to server and desktop virtualization eagerly seeking ways to collect the substantial bottom-line rewards those technologies deliver as quickly as possible. Fortunately for them, veterans of the virtualization process have plenty of tips to share. Here, according to experts, are four top strategies for accelerating ROI on a virtualization deployment:

1. Update your server management tools and policies
Simpler administration is one of server virtualization’s biggest benefits. Since a virtual server is little more than a computer file, setting up a new one is practically a copy-and-paste operation. “What used to take me hours to provision in the past now I can provision in minutes,” observes Mark Bowker, an analyst at research and advisory firm Enterprise Strategy Group of Milford, Mass.

On the other hand, if you’re not careful, virtualization can also complicate once routine management tasks in costly ways. For example, simply figuring out how many servers you have in your data center is trickier when there’s no hardware to count. “Keeping track of all the machines and keeping them in inventory can be a challenge,” says Bernard Golden, CEO of HyperStratus Inc., an IT consultancy in San Carlos, Calif., that specializes in virtualization and cloud computing.

Fortunately, most hypervisor vendors offer management tools that make administering a virtual environment easier, as do third-party software makers such as KACE Networks Inc. and Quest Software Inc. Just be sure that whatever tools you select integrate with your existing management applications so your technicians have an end-to-end view of your infrastructure.

Updating your management policies is also important. For example, virtualization makes adding new servers so easy that many businesses fall victim to “virtual server sprawl,” in which underutilized virtual machines proliferate out of control. Establishing a quick but disciplined approval process requiring technicians to justify new virtual servers before deploying them can help bring this problem under control.

2. Limit your virtual desktop images
Like server virtualization, desktop virtualization makes once onerous management tasks significantly easier. In a physical desktop environment, for example, IT managers must install new software on each PC individually. With virtual desktops, however, they need only deploy new systems once on a handful of centrally-stored desktop images. That can turn rolling out an operating system update from a months-long slog into a process lasting a few days. “It’s a huge win, and it’s one of the very biggest reasons you’d go to desktop virtualization,” says Golden.

To capitalize fully on that benefit, however, organizations must limit the number of desktop images they support. The fewer images you have, the lighter your administrative burden and the speedier your ROI. Just ask the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), in Pittsburgh, Pa., which is currently rolling out a desktop virtualization deployment that’s projected to lower image inventory radically. “By next summer we’ll have one to two thousand desktops running on just two or three images,” says Dan Dillman, an IT manager in charge of desktop virtualization and remote access for UPMC. As a result, a few quick changes in the data center will be all it takes to update an entire enterprise’s worth of desktops.

3. Combine desktop virtualization with application virtualization
You can extend desktop virtualization’s management efficiencies even further by combining it with application virtualization. What desktop virtualization does for entire desktops, application virtualization does for individual solutions, enabling multiple users to access a single copy of a program from a central location in your data center. That allows you to create simpler virtual desktops that are easier to administer because they don’t include application software. And since those application-free desktops are also smaller, they don’t eat up as much disk space, saving you money on storage.

Meanwhile, delivering virtualized applications to a virtual desktop reduces strain on network bandwidth too. Instead of streaming users an entire copy of Microsoft Office, for example, you need only send them the small portion they see on their monitor. “You’re reducing the footprint you have to send down to the display device,” Golden explains. That can spare you the expense of LAN and WAN upgrades.

4. Combine server virtualization with storage virtualization
ROI on a server virtualization deployment is almost sure to lag if you don’t virtualize your storage as well. “If you really want to achieve all the benefits of server virtualization, you end up almost inevitably going to storage virtualization,” says Golden.

For example, one of server virtualization’s top benefits is the way it insulates you from the costly impact of hardware issues. If a physical server breaks down or requires routine maintenance, you can simply transfer its virtual servers onto a different host device, all but eliminating downtime. Yet such administrative flexibility is only possible if your storage is virtualized. Storage virtualization lets you pool an entire server farm’s worth of data in a central repository. That de-couples the relationship between a virtual server and its host hardware’s disk drive, making virtual machines equally at home anywhere in your data center.

Like desktop and application virtualization, then, server and storage virtualization are better together, a fact that hints at what just may be the most important ROI tip of all: The surest way to get swift returns from a virtualization investment is to virtualize as many parts of your infrastructure as possible. “People that adopt virtualization at all layers will recognize the greatest levels of efficiency and optimization,” says Bowker. When it comes to virtualization, in other words, thinking big pays off.

Click here for the full story, A Roadmap to Reducing Complexity.