The Datacenter of the Future Moving Towards Virtualization and Trends in the Datacenter Landscape Virtualized and Cloud computing are quickly becoming the way to go for organizations seeking to optimize their IT infrastructure. Benefits such as cost effectiveness, scalability on demand, moving from a CAPEX to OPEX model and increased returns on investments have made virtualization a lucrative datacenter option. The latest trends in the Internet Data Center (IDC) market show a marked change from the point of view of CFOs and CIOs which has led more organizations to move towards virtualization. Here is a look at several such trends that have emerged in recent times. Organizations are opting to move from the classic server based cost model to application based cost models as multiple applications being hosted on a single server through virtualization is helping to drive the metrics for datacenters. Multiple Virtual Machines (VMs) being hosted on a single server has led to reduced application based costs. Organizations are now looking to increase VM density per server. Banking on the growing trend of VM density, OEM providers are now creating virtualization ready servers with added memory that facilitate deployment and maintenance of VMs and decrease virtualization costs. Organizations make massive savings on hardware and equipment by utilization a cloud based pool of resources such as networks, servers, storage and computing. Customers are witnessing high levels of scalability as bandwidth is available on demand on a virtualized cloud computing environment. Cross training of staff has resulted in optimum utilization of human capital. Estimates show that building a collocation based IDC costs anywhere between USD 10 million to USD 35 Million, making organizations turn to third party IDC providers. However, organizations are looking for short, 12-24 months contracts as they expect IDC collocation prices to decline in the near future. Software as a Se rvice (SaaS) for IT management is expected to gr ow further as companies avoid spending on cost heavy IT management framewor ks. With pressure mounting on companies from governments to map their carbon footprint, organizations, especially in the US, are looking towards the low energy utilization of third party IDCs in order to build a more eco-friendly repute. Raised floors for racks are now considered obsolete as IDCs look to reduce capital costs by building denser facility carved into zones. Moving Towards Effective Virtualization A virtua lized IT enviro nment ne eds to be care fully plan ned in ord er for it to be effective. To begin with, a company should be able to clearly identify its business goals and the objectives it aims to fulfill through virtualization. Plans have to be made keeping in mind future contingencies. The basic framework would consider LAN/SAN convergence, layering of networks, tier switches in each layer and the management process of cloud computing and virtualization. A virtualized IDC also has to consider physical hardware, compliance and governance regulation models PERSPECTIVE 1 December 2010 CtrlS Insight