The purpose of an assessment is to analyze the current state of affairs and decide what needs to be done to move to a desired state. Business and operational assessments for virtualization implementation look at business needs and IT operational readiness. What needs to be done to ensure success in these areas?
Steps in the business and operational readiness assessment include:
- Establish “team virtualization.”
- Review top level goals and devise success measures.
- Assess the capital and operating expense of physical server replacement.
- Assess the virtualization readiness of the application users/owners.
- Assess the capability maturity for managing virtual infrastructure.
- Avoid poison pills: relate assessment to virtualization candidates list.
- Develop a checklist of key success indicators, and measure pilot implementation.
Virtualization represents a new and different way of managing infrastructure. Making the transition involves trust. Demonstrable operational capability will help assure architecture performance levels and business outcomes for key stakeholders.