Rush like a racecar driver into a virtualization strategy and you may create "VM stall" and other nasty surprises instead of savings and agility. CA Technologies shares some expert advice on managing virtualization using a mature lifecycle approach that stresses one step at a time.

You wouldn't race down the motorway the day after you've passed your driving exam. You need to mature: learn the basics, build up your experience, and plan ahead. Virtualization is no different. Almost every organization is rushing headlong to deploy the technology, create the building blocks for cloud computing, and capitalize on the advantages of agility, cost, quality, and risk.

But rushing with the speed of a Formula 1 driver into a virtualization strategy—whether it is a stand-alone virtual or hybrid physical and virtual environment—is fraught with risk. Don't expect to deliver a dynamic, self-service virtualized data center overnight. Like driving, you need to adopt a maturity approach—building your virtual cloud future one step at a time. Try and do it all at once, and you'll either stall or crash.

The virtualization journey from straightforward server consolidation to dynamic data center can be long and hard. Even the best virtualization plans struggle, sooner or later, with added complexity, staffing requirements, service level agreement (SLA) management, departmental politics, or something else. (...)

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