Virtualisation: What’s all the noise about?
Everyone’s either talking about it or doing it. So what benefits do application and server virtualisation technologies offer?
A number of issues are driving uptake of server virtualisation technologies across the enterprise and mid-market sectors. Hardware under-utilisation in data centres is a common problem. Often only 15 per cent of servers’ total processing capacity is used which means valuable space and electricity is wasted.
This problem is often compounded by increasing electricity costs, limited electricity availability and environmental sustainability commitments.
Server virtualisation technology allows you to reduce the number of physical servers and cooling resources in the data centre, thereby reducing power consumption. It also allows you to optimise the processing capabilities of your remaining hardware, so you get more computer power from less hardware.
Demand for application virtualisation technologies is also on the rise, particularly in the Health, Finance, Legal and even Construction industries. Virtualisation at the application level enables organisations to centrally manage applications in the data centre rather than on the desktop or laptop.
As such, it is ideal for organisations that provide staff with remote network access, offering greater data security and centralised data management.
Getting the most out of your virtualisation investment
Deploying virtualisation technology in your organisation, particularly at the application level, means a significant shift in the way your business operates. It will not only change the company’s infrastructure, it will also change the end users’ IT experience.
If the technology is not optimally configured during rollout to achieve performance benefits across the company and the implementation process is slow and problematic, you may face significant losses to productivity and the bottom line.
To ensure your organization achieves maximum efficiency gains from virtualisation technology and to minimise costly disruptions to your business during deployment and user adoption, it is critical IT staff receive quality training prior to implementation.
“I have worked with one company that rolled out a significant virtualisation deployment before its IT staff had undertaken technology training,” said Neil Christie, Technology Product Manager at DDLS.
“Once they had completed DDLS’s XenApp training course, they decided to pull out all of the virtualisation technology and start again. They realized they were not getting the full value from the technology.
“They were using the technology as a Band-aid solution - to fix an application versus desktop compatibility issue – rather than an end-to-end solution that delivers benefits across the business.”
DDLS recently announced its partnership with leading virtualisation company VMWare, which will see the introduction of new courses covering VMWare vSphere.
In addition, DDLS offers courses in application virtualisation that cover Citrix XenApp and Microsoft SoftGrid.
DDLS’s server virtualisation courses provide you with practical information on how your organisation can best utilise all of the features server virtualisation technology offers.
Our application virtualisation courses will show you how to manage applications infrastructure in a virtual environment and how to deploy the virtual applications to achieve comprehensive cost and resources savings.
To find out more about the DDLS training services, please contact 13 12 01 or visit www.DDLS.com.au.
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