Virtualization technology has great promises for IT applications to run better, faster, cheaper, and more flexible. But that won’t happen by just buying the latest and greatest product.
Today’s digital infrastructures consists of dozens or even hundreds of servers, Terabytes if not Petabytes of storage spread over multiple storage arrays, and potentially thousands of desktops, laptops, tablets and other devices. These infrastructures serve thousands of users with hundreds of different applications. They are supported by operational teams that are typically grouped by technical ‘silo’: server, network, storage, etc.
Managing these digital infrastructures properly while keeping agility up and costs down is a major challenge for IT departments.
This challenge leads to high cost, inflexible service, long lead times for projects and overworked support departments.
Who is going to help you get out of that mess? Vendors? Consultants?
Sure, vendors understand technology, but mostly their own technology. And there are probably no vendors that have a full suite of software that is a good fit for your situation. And how would you know? Infrastructure solutions are notorious for solving problems only partly. Look at how many versions Microsoft Windows had to go through before it was good enough for production use. Even today, an efficient Windows based IT platform needs a lot of add-on software to make it manageable. While all of that technology may be a smart solution in the space it was designed for, chances are high that it either falls short of what your organization needs, or is too expensive or cumbersome to manage.
Let’s face it. The basic technology that is used to run IT on these days is based on PCs. Single user, single box devices, running a few applications only. Only gradually has technology been added to be able to manage thousands of these to be used as a flexible set of resources capable of being adapted quickly to changing requirements.
Most of this technology is grouped under the name of ‘virtualization technology ‘. But we now have server virtualization, storage virtualization, desktop virtualization, network virtualization, application virtualization and more. All of which is introduced to compensate some characteristic of PC technology and make it more usable for large scale IT deployment.
Now what about bringing in some expensive consultants to shed some light on your IT? Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that they are good, knowledgeable, and vendor independent. That still does not solve the problem that the internal IT department is often siloed in traditional IT disciplines. Virtualization is about new ways of consolidating IT to make it more flexible and resilient. For example, using a combination of server virtualization and storage virtualization the risk of server crashes can largely be eliminated. Getting that to work requires IT teams to work together across silos. Getting them to work together requires that they have a common understanding of virtualization’s potential as well as the new risks.
This is the challenge that the Virtualization Essentials course was designed for. It enables senior IT specialists, architects and service managers (to name just the core jobs) to work together on the successful and profitable adoption of virtualization.
The Virtualization Essentials course is a 2-day, interactive, classsroom-based learning experience. The course provides a balanced curriculum and addresses the business perspective, the technical organization, and operating and governing virtualization. The course enables participants to successfully complete the associated Foundation exam.
For more information on the contents of the course, visit https://www.clubcloudcomputing.com/virtualization-essentials/
You can rely on me to deliver this learning experience. I am one of the most experienced vendor neutral cloud trainers in the world, and I have trained over 100 individuals, and more than 40 candidate cloud trainers. Visit my LinkedIN page for independent proof.