Why Ferris Bueller Would Love Virtualization

One of the beautiful aspects of technology is that, when used correctly, it can make your life so much easier. And isn’t that what everyone is in need of — some time to stop and catch your breath? With all the demands of work, family, friends and every other commitment you might have, every little bit helps. I think the 1980s philosopher Ferris Bueller put it perfectly: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

From a technology standpoint, few solutions better support Ferris’ vision than virtualization. After all, what IT staff isn’t looking to simplify their lives by achieving better systems management and decreasing equipment and energy costs?

Arro, based in Hodgkins, Ill., is a great example of this. The company was experiencing some growing pains and needed to build up its infrastructure in a hurry. They turned to HP servers, an EMC storage area network and VMware virtualization software to create 11 virtual machines, which helped improve their uptime.

But this solution didn’t happen overnight. The first step was convincing the business’s management team that virtualization was right for them. “You show management the benchmarks from existing and new servers, and you explain to them what you can achieve with a virtualization setup: reduced hardware requirements, reliability and an overall lower total cost of ownership,” says Alex Alia, IT manager at Arro.

Another benefit of virtualization is faster provisioning of servers, Alia adds. In the past, it could take a week or two to purchase a new server, wait for it to be delivered, install the operating system and applications, and configure the server in the data center. Now, with templates of server images ready to go, Alia can create a virtual server in about 30 minutes.

For more information about how companies are navigating their way through the virtualization process, turn to “Rev It Up” on Page 24.