Virtualization Impact

Virtualization is proven to reduce cost by consolidating servers on less physical servers. I read an article “Does Virtualization Increase IT Management Costs?” by Charlie Schluting in Enterprise Networking Planet. Charlie Schluting states, “Cisco started saying that virtualization doesn't actually save money due to increased management costs involved with running a virtual infrastructure.” The article goes on to discuss all costs associated with virtualization: management, training virtualization staff, virtualization consultants. However, I believe it still makes sense to virtualize corporate infrastructure and that these costs will continue to decrease as virtualization becomes more and more mainstream.

In the 90s there was promise of the paperless office as the typewriter died and the word processor took over. Companies were also able to scan documents and discard the paper. However, it turns out that businesses actually print more revisions of every document with a word processor than when using the old type writer. We print far more in general not less than in the past. I doubt anyone is going to argue that we should go back to typewriters and discard scanners. Clearly we are able to produce better quality documents and office automation makes the office worker more efficient and effective.

Will virtualization drive more servers and more applications? Applications you could not justify because of the cost associated with supporting another server can be quickly and easily launched on a new virtual machine. Will businesses then end up with more physical servers?

“Does Virtualization Increase IT Management Costs?” by Charlie Schluting:
http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/_featured/article.php/3876576/Does+Virtualization+Increase+IT+Management+Costs?.htm