This year, many enterprises will tame physical server sprawl with virtualization and consolidation only to find that "virtual server sprawl" remains an issue. Make sure that consolidation and virtualization plans account for managing the virtual infrastructure.

Server Sprawl and "Virtual Server Sprawl"

Server sprawl refers to the proliferation of x86 architecture Microsoft Windows and Linux servers throughout many enterprises. Distributed physical servers in this kind of environment typically use only 20% of their capacity. Staff must also support an ever increasing number of servers and server locations, while budgets remain constrained.

With virtualization, an enterprise can boost hardware utilization to between 60% and 80% by consolidating multiple virtual machines on fewer and more centralized servers. However, virtualization and consolidation don't solve all the problems of server sprawl. For example:

• Virtual servers need management too. Many server management tasks, such as updating patches, address servers as instances of running operating systems...