Businesses are in the business of making money. While the model that a company chooses to attempt such a feat varies widely, the formula they all subscribe to is universal: revenue less costs equals profit. It is no wonder that the goal of most senior executives is to increase revenue, decrease cost, or both. The IT department for most organizations is seen as a cost center, and usually one that is in direct conflict with one of the three aforementioned goals. Yes, as technology continually improves, it seems the IT department wants to spend more and more. “Didn’t they just buy new servers six years ago?”

However, with the guidance of a data center consultant with expertise in virtualization, computing, and storage, the next expenditure in data center technology can improve operational costs of the IT department, and work in conjunction with the goals of executives. The consolidation of hardware and software that virtualization provides can allow for a reduction in many key factors that commonly contribute to the ongoing costs of supporting the data center. With the proper study ahead of time by skilled professionals, these areas can be identified, measured, and included in a plan for the next technology refresh that will improve the total cost of ownership for the IT department. At TBL, we have created a practice around 7 of these key areas that have the most impact on the data center. It takes a proven methodology and the discipline of carefully planned deployments with low level detail given to the migration from old to new, but savings can be realized in a virtualization project.

The main issue that many organizations that virtualize face is that they do not measure ANY factors, and therefore cannot claim success in virtualizing. While the ability to consolidate is a powerful one, simply reducing the quantity of something does not inherently means that the costs associated with operating it are reduced. Businesses who are planning to virtualize the data center should make sure to work off of a baseline of known cost factors so that the financial impact can analyzed. That is the true measure of success for a business.