Strategies for Successfully Implementing a Virtualization Project: A Case with Vmware

ABSTRACT Virtualization has become one of the hottest information technologies in the past few years. Yet, despite the proclaimed cost savings and efficiency improvement, implementation of the virtualization involves high degree of uncertainty, and consequently a great possibility of failures. Experience from managing the VMware based project activities at several companies are reported as the examples to illustrate how to increase the chance of successfully implementing a virtualization project. INTRODUCTION Virtualization typically involves using special software to safely run multiple operating systems and applications simultaneously with a single computer (Business Week Online, 2007; Scheier, 2007; Kovar, 2008). The technology initially allows company to consolidate an array of servers to improve operating efficiency and reduce costs (Strassmann, 2007; Lechner, 2007; Godbout, 2007). It has since been applied to dealing with data storage as well as desktop systems (Taylor, 2007). Owning to the success of tools developed by VMware Inc., the technology has become one of the most talk-about technology, and has draw attention from both IS professionals and non-Is executives in virtually all industries. Despite the potentially significant impact on company's operations, this technology has virtually been ignored by the academic researchers. Almost all articles addressing this technology and its potential effects on company's IT/IS management have been done by the practitioners. The technology, however, is not a panacea, and just like most other information technologies, it comes with a great deal of risks (Dubie, 2007). For companies considering virtualization projects will have to follow solid guidelines to help minimize the risks associate with the project. This study attempts to develop strategies for successfully implementing virtualization project. Lessons learned from the implementation of a VMware based virtualization project will be used to formulate the strategies which may be used by companies to reduce the uncertainty associated with managing their virtualization projects. Literature review of the virtualization technology will be presented in the following section. Lessons of implementing the virtualization projects at several companies are reported to compare VMware and other virtualization solutions throughout the paper. Strategies for successfully implementing such a project will then be presented. A brief summary of major lessons learned and some directions for future studies will conclude this paper. LITERATURE REVIEW A server is a computer used by multiple users for a specific application or multiple functions. The benefits of servers include centralized location, ability to control the air conditioning, consistent data archiving and speed. For example, a print server can eliminate the need for each user to have a personal printer. This would improve the efficiency of using network printer and reduce the cost of maintaining multiple printers. Application servers, while similar to file servers, are unique in that they run executable applications from the central location. By using application servers, costs of application software are reduced (Sportack, 1998). Reports pertaining to virtualization range from presenting basic concepts and the fundamental knowledge about this technology (Conry-Murray, 2007; Hassell, 2007; Hayes, 2008; Kovar, 2007; Watson, 2007) to more advanced skills of managing the implementation strategy (Dubie, 2007; Gruman, 2007) and the analytical approaches to dealing with visualization projects (Hiller, 2006). Almost all these reports were published in trade magazines and written by the practitioners. The interdependency between servers and datacenter networks are one of the key drivers for server management costs, even including LANs and SANs. For years, blades have been the choice as the chassis backplane. …