How do you like THEM apples?

Assess
Plan
Play
License
Execute
Survey

Here at Virtualizationstuff we have rolled out the following methodology for implementing a virtualization project. The Acronym is APPLES. The beauty of the methodology is its simplicity and the fact that most organizations can do a lot of the work minimizing costs at the outset and for ongoing maintenance. For everything else there is Virtualizationstuff.

Assess:

Why do you want to virtualize your infrastructure?
What parts of it will you do first? Why? Do they represent the largest savings?
What other quantifiable benefits do you get besides savings?
How much will you save in facilities costs (Space & Power)?
How much will you need to spend to virtualize for the initial phase/set up?
What is the goal in percentage to be virtualized of the first phase of an initiative?
What are the current utilization rates of the infrastructure to be virtualized?
Where do you want the utilization to be in the new environment?

Plan

What changes need to be made to the facilities to support a consolidation?
What will the footprint need to be to support the new environment?
Do you have the resources to support the project?
How will you or departments pay for the project?
What do the builds need to look like? For what application(s)?
Who will pay what?

Play

What ‘what if’ scenarios are a top concern?
What happens if the project is wildly successful?
What happens if the project is wildly unsuccessful?
When will you max out capacity?
What are the costs to add capacity/elasticity?
What are the impacts to the financial models?

License
How many licenses do you need?
What is the impact to application licensing?
Is there anything not supported?
Who will pay for these? How will you chargeback?

Execute

Deploy the infrastructure to capture largest savings first
Deploy the monitoring/chargeback mechanism
Track savings and expenditures
Broadcast successes and challenges at regular intervals
Perform post mortems at the end of each phase

Survey

Quarterly snapshot audits communicated to business units/departments
Publish results to dashboards for Finance and Operations to consume
Leverage data to support comp plans and bonus structure
What else can be done to increase operational efficiencies?

There will be more published around this methodology, and the importance of politics in an initiative, and how to factor them out of yours.

If you would like to engage us we have two offerings built around the methodology:

1. Vproof is an engagement utilizing our ROI models to extract data that will drive sound business decisions by both IT and Finance.
2. Vcolo which is adding capacity inside your existing data centers and providing a virtual colocation model whereby you will grow capacity inside your 4 walls

Pricing is based on desired results, size of environment, and value delivered. Average engagements are 2-4 weeks and cost $40,000-100,000.

To learn more contact us at virtualizationstuff@gmail.com