The New Data Center - Consolidate and Bring on the Virtualization

Caught this article from CIO Magazine through a post on Doug McClure's Blog titled "Defining the next generation data centers", in the article is discusses how data centers are changing and redefining their approach.   One area of the article that leaped out at me though was the author's thoughts on consolidation and virtualization.   We continue to hear more and more about these two IT drivers but I have also been hearing from many is the confusion on how to make them work for them sand provide value into their organizations.   The article mentions using frameworks such as ITIL and ITSM to organize their approach, but for any of us that have been through consolidation and virtualization efforts, we know it requires more than frameworks and good efforts.   I think it requires two things more than anything else  from the top layer of abstraction and those are:

1.  Strategy - Frameworks can assist in deploying the strategy, but the IT management must come to grips with ensuring that a cohesive strategy that incorporates input and feedback from the functional areas and their leaders within the organization are incorporated into the strategy.  So many IT teams choose to move forward without doing this and the results suffer greatly from it.  Yet those IT organizations that work hand in hand with the business disciplines within their organizations continue to help their companies perform better and build momentum in the marketplace....repeat after me "IT can be strategic and profitable".   Sorry....couldn't resist.  :)

2.  Commitment - From the Executive Suite through the Support function all employees, stake-holders and leaders must come to a consensus and then support the  rollout of the strategy, otherwise as many organizations have found out...the results will be mixed at best and mor elikely disastorous.  Remeber it has been reported that more than 60% of all IT projects have sub-par results or completely fail.   Usually you will find a lack of commitment  is one of the reasons for this.

These two items when done correctly can have a profound effect of the strategic results of the organization.  Hope this helps....