Gartner offers virtualization tips, predictions

At Gartner’s Data Center Summit 2007 in London yesterday, analysts said virtualization will be the most significant factor in adding agility to data centers through 2012.

I think we already figured that, since virtualization can significantly cut back the number of servers, space, power and cooling demands in data centers.

The takeaway from Gartners declaration: If you aren’t at least looking at virtualization for your data center, you are falling behind businesses that already are — and that isn’t a good place to be.

Gartner had some recommendations to organizations planning or implementing virtualization:

- When looking at IT projects, balance the virtualized and unvirtualized services. Also look at the investments and trade-offs;
- Reuse virtualized services across the portfolio. Every new project does not warrant a new virtualization technology or approach;
- Understand the impact of virtualization on the project’s life cycle. In particular, look for licensing, support and testing constraints;
- Focus not just on virtualization platforms, but also on the management tools and the impact on operations;
- Look for emerging standards for the management and virtualization space.