Over the past six years virtualisation has become the hottest "thing" in IT, much as Client Server Computing was in the 1990's and Web technologies following that. Virtualisation has evolved from an unknown and frequently misunderstood technology to the de facto, preferred infrastructure platform, and more importantly a significant infrastructure strategy for most organisations. The initial virtual infrastructure deployments largely concentrated on installation of the new environment and consolidation of a set of little utilised physical servers into a much smaller number of highly utilised virtual hosts. The benefits made possible by this technology spurred the rapid adoption of virtualisation and accelerated the widespread deployment of such infrastructure. The effort involved in completing this migration was all that most companies could absorb. Many organisations concentrated primarily on virtualising the environment, which meant putting off major changes to IT operations until a later date. This philosophy, as successful as it has been, has left significant holes in the operational processes of most virtual environments. Organisations today are struggling as a result of these gaps, which often prevent them from realising the full benefits of the investments made in virtual environments.

Management of day-to-day operations related to this new infrastructure has become increasingly difficult as the number of systems under management and the number of technologies integrated into the overall solution have grown. The ability to provide operational control over this quickly expanding architecture has become a critical priority for most organisations.

If you either have a current stake in virtualisation as a technology and a strategy, or you are thinking of deploying virtualisation as a platform for your x86 systems, then read this whitepaper to learn vital information about the components of a well-managed virtual environment and how to incorporate them into your virtual environment.