What was one of the primary drivers for virtualizing servers? Oh yeah, we’re trying to economize. Buy fewer servers, burn less power, reclaim floor space, all that good stuff.
Some sophisticated IT organizations have done post hoc analysis of their virtualization ROI, and the results are frustrating. As expected, the TCO of servers was significantly reduced. However, incremental spending on storage – more hardware, higher end hardware, more array software licenses, and increased operating expenses – swamped the savings on the server side. In hindsight, server virtualization didn’t save them any money. A dirty little secret of the virtualization industry.
There’s the paradox. You implement a virtualization strategy, in part, to save on server expenses. Result: spend more on storage. What’s the point?
Here’s what many IT architects have found. To achieve their virtual server goals, they needed high-cost storage arrays, built on proprietary architectures, and loaded with software licenses that work only with one vendor’s storage hardware. They had to buy more storage than expected, more than they really needed. Frustrating indeed.
- Storage sprawl
- Storage performance problems
- Storage management complexity
- Excessive storage costs
