In all the enthusiasm generated by quick savings and speedy results, many organisations have faltered in developing a strong virtualisation strategy. By not adopting a sustainable, long-term outlook of their virtualisation technologies, these organisations are short-changing themselves in terms of long-term ROI and stability of virtualisation systems. Adopting a virtualisation maturity model can help organisations develop a strong virtualisation strategy, thus helping ensure sustainability, long-term cost savings and operational efficiencies.
What is the allure of the virtualisation maturity model?
The use of a maturity model can help organisations measure their progress towards a fully realised
virtualisation strategy. Moreover, a maturity model can offer specific guidelines for actualising a virtualisation strategy. Briefly, let’s recall why a strong virtualisation strategy is so desirable in the first place: strong strategy can help maximise and realise ROI, serve as acknowledgment for the long-term effort ahead, secure the support of senior-level stakeholders, define the correct investment level over time, ensure ongoing business alignment, reduce overall risk of failure, bring together the right skills at the right time and guarantee a long-term vision that ensures full utilisation of virtualisation.
The Virtualisation Maturity Model
As the five-stage virtualisation maturity model produced by the
National Computing Centre
Insight Report shows, most organisations go through several distinct stages of maturity. Here we outline five common stages and corresponding guidelines to help organisations develop a long-term strategy.
Experimental
In this stage, organisations are experimenting with virtualisation, putting new programs through development and testing, and launching pilot programs. Organisations are becoming more familiar with the technology, appreciating its potential, although not necessarily developing specific, long-term plans for the technology. This stage can be classified as primarily reactive.
Tactical
The tactical stage is characterised by the deployment of a few production systems and a lower overall percentage of virtualised servers. This stage is consolidation-oriented and deployment is usually based on select unchanged processes and procedures. Management toolsets are usually not in play during this stage.
Strategic
In this crucial stage, the perception of virtualisation should be that it is a normal policy that facilitates the use of advanced capabilities across an organisation. Capacity management and monitoring become programmed and minor changes to processes and procedures are carried out. Real business benefits are realised as basic automation gets underway.
Transformation
Service delivery may be transformed in this stage through team restructuring, adoption of an SLA-based approach, and self-provisioning of resources. In this stage,
private cloud capabilities can also be offered, helping cut operating expenses and lending greater agility to the organisation.
Utility
In the fifth stage, virtualisation has been thoroughly embedded within the organisation, representing a complete utility environment for IT. On demand, fully automated delivery of all applications is now available, either through private or public cloud capabilities.