Does virtualization save money or not?

May 13th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com
/news/article/0,289142,sid94_gci1310403,00.html

Many companies deploy server virtualization with the expectation that reducing the number of physical servers in a data center will reduce power bills as well as payroll expenses. And virtualization companies often tout their technologies as a means to reduce staffing needs as well.

But in reality as several companies confront the various new challenges created by virtualization, data center staffing has involved more of a reshuffling of IT responsibilities rather than a staff reduction per se.

Do check out this interesting article talking about how virtualization might not be the cost saver that people are expecting. I like to think of virtualization as a vehicle for change, a way of changing your infrastructure to have it work around your business, to be dynamic, to avoid those, “the lead time is three weeks for your server”, conversations.  We need to abstract headcount from the virtual infrastructure conversation - just because your servers are virtual doesn’t mean you don’t need the Windows/Linux and middleware guys. To reduce your staff, you need to identify the workload, those causal factors, attack the problem at source then move down the support chain to identify failures in service delivery, whether it’s monitoring, pro-active engineering (patching/clearing down log files etc).

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