How Citrix software can bring about a fast return on your virtualisation investment

"Here's one thing at least that tough economic times haven't changed - businesses continue to exhibit a healthy appetite for virtualisation. In fact, Stamford, Conn.-based analyst firm Gartner Inc. expects global spending on server and desktop virtualisation software to jump from $1.9 billion in 2008 to $2.7 billion in 2009, a 43% increase.

IT executives remain hungry for fast returns on their technology investments too. Indeed, today's tighter IT budgets have made speedy ROI a higher priority than ever.

Put it all together and you end up with legions of newcomers to server and desktop virtualisation eagerly seeking ways to collect the substantial bottom-line rewards those technologies deliver as quickly as possible.

Fortunately for them, veterans of the virtualisation process have plenty of tips to share. Here, according to experts, are four top strategies for accelerating ROI on a virtualisation deployment:

1. Update your server management tools and policies

Simpler administration is one of server virtualisation's biggest benefits. Since a virtual server is little more than a computer file, setting up a new one is practically a copy-and-paste operation. "What used to take me hours to provision in the past now I can provision in minutes," observes Mark Bowker, an analyst at research and advisory firm Enterprise Strategy Group of Milford, Mass.

On the other hand, if you're not careful, virtualisation can also complicate once routine management tasks in costly ways. For example, simply figuring out how many servers you have in your data centre is trickier when there's no hardware to count. "Keeping track of all the machines and keeping them in inventory can be a challenge," says Bernard Golden, CEO of Hyper-Stratus Inc., an IT consultancy in San Carlos, Calif., that specialises in virtualisation and cloud computing.

Fortunately, most hypervisor vendors offer management tools that make administering a virtual environment easier, as do third-party software makers such as KACE Networks Inc. and Quest Software Inc. Just be sure that whatever tools you select integrate with your existing management applications so your technicians have an end-to-end view of your infrastructure.

Updating your management policies is also important. For example, virtualisation makes adding new servers so easy that many businesses fall victim to 'virtual server sprawl' in which underutilised virtual machines proliferate out of control. Establishing a quick but disciplined approval process requiring technicians to justify new virtual servers before deploying them can help bring this problem under control.

2. Limit your virtual desktop images

Like server virtualisation, desktop virtualisation makes once onerous management tasks significantly easier. In a physical desktop environment, for example, IT managers must install new software on each PC individually. With virtual desktops, however, they need only deploy new systems once on a handful of centrally-stored desktop images. That can turn rolling out an operating system update from a month's long slog into a process lasting a few days. "It's a huge win, and it's one of the very biggest reasons you'd go to desktop virtualisation," says Golden.

To capitalise fully on that benefit, however, organisations must limit the number of desktop images they support. The fewer images you have, the lighter your administrative burden and the speedier your ROI. Just ask the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), in Pittsburgh, Pa., which is currently rolling out a desktop virtualisation deployment that's projected to lower image inventory radically. "By next summer we'll have one to two thousand desktops running on just two or three images," says Dan Dillman, an IT manager in charge of desktop virtualisation and remote access for UPMC. As a result, a few quick changes in the data centre will be all it takes to update an entire enterprise's worth of desktops.

3. Combine desktop virtualisation with application virtualisation

You can extend desktop virtualisation's management efficiencies even further by combining it with application virtualisation. What desktop virtualisation does for entire desktops, application virtualisation does for individual solutions, enabling multiple users to access a single copy of a program from a central location in your data centre. That allows you to create simpler virtual desktops that are easier to administer because they don't include application software. And since those application-free desktops are also smaller, they don't eat up as much disk space, saving you money on storage.

Meanwhile, delivering virtualised applications to a virtual desktop reduces strain on network bandwidth too. Instead of streaming users an entire copy of Microsoft Office, for example, you need only send them the small portion they see on their monitor. "You're reducing the footprint you have to send down to the display device," Golden explains. That can spare you the expense of LAN and WAN upgrades.

4. Combine server virtualisation with storage virtualisation

ROI on a server virtualisation deployment is almost sure to lag if you don't virtualise your storage as well. "If you really want to achieve all the benefits of server virtualisation, you end up almost inevitably going to storage virtualisation," says Golden.

For example, one of server virtualisation's top benefits is the way it insulates you from the costly impact of hardware issues. If a physical server breaks down or requires routine maintenance, you can simply transfer its virtual servers onto a different host device, all but eliminating downtime. Yet such administrative flexibility is only possible if your storage is virtualised. Storage virtualisation lets you pool an entire server farm's worth of data in a central repository. That decouples the relationship between a virtual server and its host hardware's disk drive, making virtual machines equally at home anywhere in your data centre.

Like desktop and application virtualisation, then, server and storage virtualisation are better together, a fact that hints at what just may be the most important ROI tip of all - the surest way to get swift returns from a virtualisation investment is to virtualise as many parts of your infrastructure as possible. “People that adopt virtualisation at all layers will recognise the greatest levels of efficiency and optimisation," says Bowker. When it comes to virtualisation, in other words, thinking big pays off."

FIND OUT MORE

For further information on the virtualisation technologies available from Citrix, contact your Phoenix Account Manager on 0845 265 1265 or email info@phoenixs.co.uk