According to Wikipedia: Virtualization is a broad term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources. Virtualization nowadays has become an integral part of IT organizations to reduce cost and improve flexibility. Industry analysts position virtualization as a megatrend and the best tool to optimize efficiency.

Technically the power of virtualization is in the fact that software behaves as/simulates hardware. There are many types of virtualization, e.g. platform virtualization (which separates an operating system from the underlying platform resources), resource virtualization (the virtualization of specific system resources, such as storage volumes, name spaces, and network resources), application virtualization (the hosting of individual applications on alien hardware/software), desktop virtualization (the remote manipulation of a computer desktop) etc. etc. 

Adding virtualization to your IT organization also adds a layer of complexity that needs to be managed. So I decided to dedicate this post to describing the impact of virtualization on several ITIL based IT processes.

1. Within IT Financial Management there will be a shift of investments. For example instead of acquiring more servers, in most cases more storage will be procured.
2. Virtualization will also support a more effective Continuity Management process. In case of a calamity the virtual environments can be restored quicker, cheaper and with less effort. This provides a higher service continuity to the customers while the providers are prevented from paying fines and damage to their image/brand.
3. Capacity Management is becoming a critical process. In the old situation the hardware capacity was too much or un-used. With multiple virtual environments on one physical system there is a need for a throrough capacity planning to prevent performance issues to occur. The peak utilization of all virtual components also needs to be taken into account. Special attention is needed on available resource capacity when migrating virtual environments from one fysical resource to the other.
4. In the fysical world Availability Management lead to additional investments in extra hardware to be constantly stand-by but not really utilized. In addition the hardware typically needs to be reset in a fail-over situation. With virtualization less hardware is needed and fail-over can be done on-the-fly. This also implies that with virtualization a cheaper and effective high-availability can be realized, which means less downtime and the emphasis can shift from fixing errors to improving service and customer satisfaction.
5. Within Service Level Management the Services can be offered with a more attractive price due to reduced procurement-, management- and maintenance cost as well as shorter duration of IT projects supported by virtual environments. It could happen however that initially the SLAs will be impacted by more incidents and problems due to e.g. the lack of knowledge and experience.
6. Virtualization introduces new risks. Within Security Management a new risk analysis should be conducted with special attention for file and data security in the virtualized environment. Also the management of the virtualization layer is important to ensure integrity of that layer.
7. By using virtual environments the Incident and Problem Management processes can much quicker simulate issues and test potential solutions. In addition a quick copy can be made of the original fysical or virtual environment in order to (temporarily) resolve an incident and/or a problem. So the value of virtualization for these processes includes reduced downtime, reduced cost of test environments and quicker response to disruptions. So ultimately the IT employees can do more in less time. As mentioned before there can also be a negative effect on these processes as virtualization is a relatively new technology. More incidents and problems can e.g. be generated from in-compatibility between virtualization software, hardware and other applications but also by human error or wrong configurations.Typically the knowledge database has relatively little on virtualization, so the benefits will only be visible after a while.

Let me stop here. There are probably more ITIL based IT processes impacted by virtualization, however these were the first ones that came to mind. Perhaps you can  complement this list in a comment to this post? Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Jeroen Bronkhorst