Virtualized environments can help companies improve their business functions, optimize operational efficiencies and meet the changing needs of a modern business. But it can also introduce network complexity and new management challenges. To attain the full benefits of a virtualized environment, planning and design must be coordinated among the various stakeholders including server, storage, security and network.
Ingram Micro’s Virtualization Planning & Design Framework Service helps organizations develop a comprehensive virtualization strategy. Experts work collaboratively with you and your client to help meet the technical, business and financial requirements for their virtualization project.
This service will assist organizations with the planning and design activities required for a successful virtualization project. A comprehensive review of the customer’s business and technical environments will be completed to determine risk areas, identify implementation best practices and provide recommendations for an end-state virtualization environment.
The following areas will be addressed:
- Users and devices
- Budget
- Application usage, testing & implementation
- Active directory
- Server
- Storage
- Database management
- Network
- Personalization
- Peripherals
- Mobility
- System monitoring & management
- Testing processes and change control procedures
- Technical support
- End user security
- Disaster planning/business continuity
- IT staff training and end user application training
At the conclusion of the review, a comprehensive Executive Summary will be presented detailing the initial findings as well as short- and long-term goals. The framework report will define the components of an industry standard environment, outline challenges and steps for remediation and provide a high-level plan identifying tasks and dependencies to implement recommended environment changes.
- Successful virtualization planning builds “trusted advisor” relationship with customer
- Trusted, third-party assistance designed to achieve the best possible outcome and the shortest time to value
- Transfer of knowledge, skills and confidence enables better virtualization engagements
- Increased margins through an expanded services portfolio
Virtualization made a huge impact on IT in 2014 with dramatic growth particularly in data center networks — and is poised to grow even more in the coming years.
- A recent report on server virtualization from Infonetics Research states that 75 percent of surveyed companies are now in the process of virtualizing.
- Gartner’s technology forecast predicts that cloud adoption will reach $250 billion by 2017 and growth of Software as a Service (SaaS) projected at 20.2 percent annually. Both strengthen the case for virtualization.
- The Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) market in the US is expected to grow at a CAGR of 29.70 percent over the period 2014-2019 according to TechNavio’s analysts.
- TechNavio’s analysts forecast the Server Virtualization market in the US to grow at a CAGR of 27.72 percent and Global Client Virtualization Software Market to grow at a CAGR of 46.12 percent over the period 2013-2018.
Virtualization can increase IT agility, flexibility, and scalability while creating significant cost savings. Workloads get deployed faster, performance and availability increases and operations become automated, resulting in IT that’s simpler to manage and less costly to own and operate. Planning and design framework services:
- Helps design an environment to support the virtualization of the company’s business critical applications.
- Builds company’s knowledge on virtualization to avoid common pitfalls.
- Accelerates progress of virtualization progress by working with trusted, results-oriented virtualization consultants.
- Achieves the full benefits of a virtualized environment when business objectives are aligned with technical and financial requirements.