When it comes to choosing a server virtualization technology, functionality, scalability, ease-of-use, packaging and pricing are all important - whether you are a large enterprise with thousands of servers, or a small enterprise with less than 20. Unfortunately, organizations often have to sacrifice one for the other - i.e., forfeit feature/function for price or feature/function for ease of use, etc. But that's changing for the better for users.

There are significant differences between server virtualization technologies available on the market today, so organizations need to continue to do their homework to ensure that the solutions they select meet both near- and long-term business and IT demands. Failing to do so can have significant consequences from an SLA-meeting capability as well as a pure dollar standpoint. A technology that doesn't scale in capacity or performance, or doesn't provide a rich and extensive feature set, can seriously limit IT options, especially as requirements change and environments grow. Adaptability will become increasingly important.

Server virtualization may be a relatively new technology but its value is already well understood. It has become a driver of efficiency at IT shops in all different industries and geographies. Organizations of all sizes are deploying the technology for its ability to improve server utilization (via consolidation), reduce hardware and management costs, reduce the IT footprint, lower power and cooling consumption, and improve disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity.

Of course, the level of efficiency organization can expect to see depends on a number of variables, including network and storage considerations and, importantly, the feature set, ease-of-use, and scalability of the server virtualization technology.

Again, this applies to server virtualization technologies being deployed at larger enterprises as well as those being used routinely by SMEs. The scale of the SME environment may pale to that of a large organization (you may be looking at tens of servers versus hundreds or thousands of servers), but the value of virtualizing the server environment is no less diminished; it can play just as important a role in stemming IT costs (both capital and operational) as it can for larger organizations. However, the challenge, for the SME - particularly, larger ones or those that anticipate significant growth - is choosing a server virtualization solution today that will meet future IT/business requirements. With a little planning and, yes, some homework, organizations can make sure that they will be best positioned to stand the test of time.

The following "check list" is designed to help guide organizations through this process. While this list is geared to SMEs - in particular, larger SMEs - it can be leveraged by virtually all organizations - again, big or small.

Server Virtualization "Check List"
Feature Set
Users should determine which functionality (e.g., virtual machine management migration, load balancing, recovery, snapshot support, backup, patch management, etc.) they need, and then compare/contrast this list to product feature sets. Is there a virtualization manager? Virtual machine migration? Built-in capabilities to reduce power and cooling beyond server consolidation?

It's also important for organizations to note which features come standard (i.e., are included in basic pricing) and which ones are optional. If optional, users should also calculate the cost of adding the capability. Users should also note any differences in "like" features (e.g., is migration an automated process or is it manual? How are snapshots enabled? How is backup and recovery done? etc.).

Ease of Use
How easy is the product to deploy, manage, and maintain? Does this change as the environment scales? Is installation time calculated in hours or minutes? What obstacles, challenges, etc., can users expect? Is the product (and its various features) field-proven? How are features packaged (e.g., all-in-one or a la carte)? Does the product work with SAN storage? Organizations should ask vendors for references and use cases similar to their environments. Keep in mind that ongoing administrative costs can often far exceed purchase costs.

Virtual Infrastructure Management
Does the product have a robust virtual infrastructure management platform or virtualization control layer? A true virtualization manager allows the virtual infrastructure to support multi-user environments, a variety of physical infrastructures, and, importantly, integrate with third-party applications, including higher-level management applications. A virtualization control layer is integral to a server virtualization technology's serviceability, reliability and scalability capabilities - responsible for synchronizing the workflow of these tasks. In that sense, it is the "engine" that keeps the "virtual infrastructure" churning without disruption or stalling. Without this layer, the potential for some type of corruption or user disruption increases significantly.

Integration/Heterogeneity
What operating systems does the product support? What storage? Which hypervisors? Does it have a virtualization manager? What is the road map for this platform? What does the ISV and IHV ecosystem look like? More specifically, who are the vendors' ecosystem partners? For backup? For storage? etc. Is the platform extensible from both a scalability and support standpoint - meaning are you locked into one vendor's product or a single hypervisor, or is the architecture designed in such a way that it could be used in a heterogeneous environment.

Price
Users need to remember that while price is important, it is only one factor. Users also need to take special care to ensure that comparisons are done on an apples-to-apples basis. What at first glance may seem competitive may not be on closer examination. Key questions to ask include: How is the technology priced - on a per-socket basis? What features come standard with this pricing? If not, what is the additional pricing of these options? Is management included? Services? How they are priced? Organizations should list these costs for each product as well as for various configurations (e.g., 4 sockets, 8 sockets, etc.).

Different items on this list will be more or less important to different organizations depending on their situation, but they are all important. For example, price and ease of use will likely be more important to a smaller organization. At the same time, as environments change and IT, in general, evolves, the virtual infrastructure management layer will become increasingly important as will the flexibility of the server virtualization platform.