This week, Reuters columnist Eric Auchard, penned an opinion piece on the future of Dell and what role virtualization will play in that.
In the blog post, Auchard says "More than other large computer vendors, it [Dell] has embraced "virtualization" technology that lets many big tasks run on the same machine rather than separate ones.
We indeed have been very focused on enabling our customers to virtualize their data centers as evidenced by recent announcements. But, not only are we talking about this with our customers, but we’re also eating our own dog food. We have virtualized a significant percentage of our data centers and have seen dramatic savings – in the neighborhood of US $29 million.
Take a look at the video below, which features Buddy Holtendorf from Dell’s Global Platform Services team in Dell IT. Buddy describes Dell’s "virtual first" methodology in which every new deployment is looked at through a virtualization lens. Dell’s internal infrastructure has about 5,800 virtual machines on the guest side with about 500 hosts. If you’re interested in more details on what Dell has done, take a look at this case study.
On this same topic, Gartner earlier this year wrote an in-depth report entitled "The Great Virtualization Dilemma of the Next Decade: What You Need to Know" that outlines some of the challenges and strategic issues that IT personnel face. The report gives specific advice on how to deal with issues such as heterogeneity, resource and performance optimization, and the increasingly fragmented tool market. Take a minute to download this report and give it a read.