A Virtual Lifesaver: Page 5 of 6

Being able to load additional scripts onto the virtual servers creates more opportunities for efficiencies with our workflow automation projects, as well as the system of shared functions within the projects themselves. We also have improved staff efficiency, data accuracy, and overall cost savings.

Although the Christus virtualization project went smoothly for a project of this complexity and size, there are still opportunities to share key lessons. These lessons can be categorized in the project life-cycle stages of planning, design, testing, migration, and transition to operations.

First and foremost, the time we spent planning and testing paid off. The study allowed us to glean key information regarding our biggest opportunities: payback and the ease to achieve the payback. As for design, the time we took to calculate the optimum virtualization farm configuration with regard to cost and performance also paid off.

Another success factor was spending the appropriate amount of time in the lab validating study findings and assumptions on migration and application performance, and ensuring that there was a quick way to swing production systems back to physical hardware in the event of a performance issue in order to isolate and troubleshoot the environment.

Achieving a mind-set with regard to application vendor support was important. In the early stages, we let a few vendors rattle our cages with statements regarding their lack of support for VMware. As we continued to push forward, we realized that most vendors didn't understand the technology, and the expertise actually lay with ourselves and our project implementation partner.