Getting the most from virtualisation in a hybrid world

In today’s dynamic business world, organisations are confronted by a series of challenges. In addition to the growing volume of data which many have grappled to accommodate over recent years, the nature of how that data is used is changing as more and more data is recognized as dynamic rather than static information.

At the same time, the influx of dynamic mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets which generate and use dynamic data is adding complexity to an organisation’s IT infrastructure. IT management is faced with balancing the expectations of corporate users while aligning with business goals and objectives, including cost savings and productivity and efficiency improvements.

Virtualisation is not just a cost saver, it can be a lifesaver too
Many businesses today have chosen to virtualise their infrastructure to save hardware costs and reduce operational expenses on energy and cooling. Virtualisation also allows IT managers to isolate system failures and efficiently dedicate resources to users and devices. With the influx of personal and/or corporate mobile devices into the enterprise implying an increased risk of something going wrong, virtualisation can be a lifesaver for many IT managers.

Virtualised environments havetheir downsides
But virtualisation also brings its own challenges. Very few businesses have transformed their complete IT infrastructure into a virtualised environment, so hybrid platforms are the reality today. But hybrid environments create management challenges when data is being moved between them. According to a Ponemon survey commissioned by Acronis, the biggest challenge for most IT managers in 2012 (79%) was managing different environments and migrating data across those environments. Addinganother level of complexity to the mix, 86% of businesses reported they were moving data (physical to virtual) using different tools.

Heterogeneous virtualised environments are also becoming inefficient and hard to manage. Most companies have taken a ‘step-by-step’ approach to virtualisation with IT departments investing in multiple virtualisation point solutions to solve a specific challenge and avoid vendor lock-in. But this resulted in a patchwork of technologies that require a diverse range of expertise to maintain and run them, making them costly andinflexible in the long run as manageability, interoperability and scalability become more important.

The diversity of locations where data andvirtual machines may reside can also make it harder for IT departments to manage the constant flow of dynamic data. This is especially true when theyneed to move and migrate data and VMs (Virtual Machines) dynamically between virtual and physical services, on premise, across data centers or to the cloud.

How to get the full benefits of virtualisation?
To take the full advantage of virtualisation, it is clear that gradually virtualising servers and applications is not enough. To prevent IT complexity and technology incompatibility creating additionalchallenges and inefficiencies, IT managers need to rethink their virtualisation approach.

There are three key principles that can help drive the full benefits of virtualisation:
1. Hybrid environments require hybrid solutions – look for integrated solutions that can handle systems running in an environment withphysical servers and virtual machines
2. Less is more – Reduce the patchwork of virtualisation technologies as much as possible to simplify management, improve interoperability and enable scalability of the whole virtualised environment
3. A unified platform for effortless data migration and protection – a unified platform can simplify the migration of data between hypervisors, automatically create virtual machines from physical servers as a backup and remove the need to migrate complete virtual machines to make data protection quick and effortless