Knowing When To Call It Quits On Virtualization

By Jerome M Wendt DCIG, LLC

I have recently heard it said that server virtualization is to data centers what marijuana is to other drugs: a "stepping stone" or "gateway" drug. After all, once you start down the path of server virtualization, at what point do you quit and stop virtualizing the rest of the infrastructure?

In the case of marijuana, barriers exist that prevent people from going directly from marijuana to cocaine (access to the drug, ethics, finances). Similarly, barriers also exist that keep organizations from immediately virtualizing their entire data center and moving entirely to a cloud-based model.