Server virtualization is on everyone's mind these days. The ingenuity of virtualization software, which breaks the 1:1 ratio of hardware to operating system and/or application, has made its use a virtual no-brainer. After all, when a single virtual server can take the place of as many as 20 physical servers, the immediate benefits are obvious:

And that just scratches the surface of how virtualization can have a profoundly positive impact on the business. Yet therein lies the problem: Most CIOs are simply scratching the surface of what virtualization can do and what it can mean for the organization. To realize the full benefits of virtualization, companies need to change existing practices and processes. Nothing insurmountable, mind you, but if you think a casual walk on the virtual side will instantly result in an IT and business panacea, think again.

"Virtualization reflects a fundamental redefinition of how we do computing," asserts Chuck Hollis, vice president of technology alliances at EMC. "At a simple level, virtualization involves putting a lot of messy things into nice virtual containers. But soon organizations will find that the skills, behaviors, and processes that work so well in the physical world don't map to the virtualized world."

Hollis suggests that any organization looking to begin or extend a virtualization initiative needs to carefully address two important factors: technology infrastructure, obviously, is the first; people and processes are the second.

Getting the business on board

At Indymac Bank in Pasadena, California, more than 50 percent of the servers are virtual. The climb has been gradual—just 15 percent of the company's servers were virtual when it began the project three years ago—so the IT department has had time to plan and implement process change. The challenge now is to get the rest of the business on board. According to Faizan Khan, vice president of IT architecture at Indymac, "Initially, we limited virtualization to a small-scale, non-production environment. We're now in a virtual-first mindset, and in addition to virtualizing our servers, we've virtualized about 400 to 500 desktops as well."

"Managing change now is as much a political process as it is a technological process," Khan continues. "Our standard server is now a virtual one, unless the requestor obtains an exception that explains why it has to be physical. We've had to conduct an education program through all our technology and operations groups to make them comfortable going virtual, including introducing chargebacks in place as an incentive."

Fazil Habibulla, vice president and systems engineer at Natixis Capital Markets, has learned to proceed cautiously, because too much of a good thing can lead to problems. "Before we virtualized, if the business requested a service that required a new server deployment, it would take up to a few weeks to spec, order, rack, and deliver. With virtualization, we can turn that into a few hours, which includes provisioning the operating system, installing security patches, configuring and testing the new service, and finally deploying the service into production."

"That's wonderful," he continues, "but we need to make sure we can support an increase in new services on the back end. It's easy to start over-provisioning because it can be done so quickly, but it can result in performance degradation, which defeats the argument for virtualizing in the first place."

Careful planning pays off

While virtualization isn't a new concept, most organizations are just now gaining experience with it. And as with any unfamiliar technology, it takes a while to learn how to use it properly.

"When the Internet was new," says Hollis, "people loaded their web pages with dense brochure content because they didn't know what the Internet experience was supposed to be. Or the often painful process of learning e-mail etiquette for the first time. Virtualization is the same thing: if organizations underestimate the scope and magnitude of the changes it brings, they're going to be unhappy campers."

Mike Carvalho, chief technology officer of Radiator Express Warehouse, went in with eyes wide open. "I had heard about virtualization, but the argument then was more ecological than economical. Then we grew faster than we anticipated, and suddenly I had a computer room at 84 degrees with all the racks full. So I looked into virtualization again. This time I ended up spending three months planning for it and three weeks implementing it."

Aside from keeping the temperature down to 72 degrees and going from five racks to three, Carvalho and his IT department finally understood the real-life value of virtualization one Saturday evening. "Our database server ran out of drive space," he says. "So I got a frantic call from my DBA, who said, 'We need more space or we'll be down Monday morning.' From my home, I accessed our VPN remotely and added a virtual 100GB hard drive in a matter of five minutes without having to reboot the server. I just carved out a chunk of SAN space and applied it to the server. Problem solved."

Know the risks, reap the rewards

Which is not to say that virtualization doesn't present potential problems, too. Suppose a company starts with 15 physical servers; if one fails, there's a certain loss of service. Now the company goes virtual and has one physical server, which hosts all the applications that used to be on the 15. If it fails, lots of services are lost. "There is an increased risk if a single physical server fails," admits Khan. "We're focusing on backup and redundancy to mitigate that risk. At the same time, we're trying not to think in terms of ratios; 20:1 sounds really good, but you also get cost savings and efficiencies with ratios of 5:1 or 2:1."

Of course, the great thing about virtualization is that it works, and the cost and energy savings can be substantial. In the case of Natixis—which went from 230 physical servers down to 105, with 170 virtual machines, 25 virtualized desktops, and 15 virtualized Linux machines—the savings extended beyond the cost of the hardware. "We relocated our disaster recovery data center and were able to relocate everything without having to hire a moving truck!" says Habibulla.

But there are additional important advantages. "Our engineers have more time to focus on other, more strategic projects," Habibulla adds. At Indymac, according to Khan, "It costs us only $3,000 to get the same server functionality that used to cost us $15,000. We're using our cost savings from virtualization to fund our growth."

Virtualizing the future

Is there more to virtualization than meets the eye? There are some who believe we're just at the tip of the iceberg. "I think we're going to start seeing a reduction in the amount of implementation of new products," says Carvalho. "In the next four years, I believe we'll see a lot of ERP applications being converted into virtual appliances that you simply download into your environment and turn on."

Hollis concurs. "I'd say that within just a few quarters, it will be the de facto expectation that IT vendors providing infrastructure software make their products run on virtual machines," he predicts. "And that, too, will bring about more changes in how people and processes work in virtual environments."

"I think the biggest challenge for larger organizations will continue to be redesigning their IT management processes and workflows around virtualization," Hollis continues. "Things like provisioning, charge-backs, patch management, and service-level delivery all can be very different in a virtual world. Changing the technology without changing the processes will make it difficult for organizations to get the full benefit of virtualization."

The message seems clear: with proper planning and perspective, the promise of virtualization is fast becoming virtual reality.