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Recent figures from IDC indicate that virtual machine and cloud system software is the fastest growing segment among software markets. As data centres increasingly move from physical to virtual, the challenges faced by IT professionals working within this software-defined environment can only grow. As a result, virtualisation can seem to be a daunting prospect, but this need not be the case. However, there are a few challenges to overcome.

VIRTUALISATION AND SSD
In a virtualised environment, you cannot afford failures in performance and capacity management. Therefore, storage I/O (Input/Output) has limited the virtualisation of I/O intensive applications such as databases. The IOPS (Input/Output Per Second) is greater for desktop virtualisation and is unlike server virtualisation, which requires more expensive, low-latency hardware. However, this could be enabled by technologies such as solid-state disk (SSD).

STORAGE AND MOBILITY
It is not only the I/O of storage that can be a limiting factor for virtualisation. When desktops and networks become virtualised, flexible and software-defined, storage can be overlooked and left behind. IT managers need to invest in storage that can handle the increased flexibility and mobility that comes with virtualisation and software-defined networking.

VIRTUAL MOBILITY VS. NETWORK OPTIMISATION
Usually, virtualisation is contained within a portion of the network. However, it is now easier to move workloads geographically with technologies such as Metro and Storage vMotion. The challenge here is that the rapid movement of workloads can cause problems for the overall network. Visibility and awareness are needed, to ensure that workload movement is not prioritised over business-critical applications.

MONITORING IN SILOS
The difficulty of monitoring in silos is that only one pathway at a time can be viewed, which may mean that problems at a boundary can be missed. This means that problem resolution can be confined to guesswork. In the near future, tools that can monitor from the very end of spindles running on a hard drive inside a storage solution right back to the end user will be more widely available. This will make life easier for everyone.

FLEXIBILITY OR INSTABILITY?
Traditionally, many IT managers are reluctant to implement major changes, as most network issues can be linked to something changing. This seems to clash with the flexible nature of virtualisation, which means that new systems or changes to systems can be implemented quickly and easily. There needs to be a compromise here in order to find a way to introduce virtualisation and benefit from its power and flexibility, without causing network instability.

BREAKING BOUNDARIES
In order to implement virtualisation, IT professionals will need to look beyond the boundaries between silos. Network, storage, applications and desktops are all brought together under virtualisation and boundaries between these areas become blurred. Different IT teams will need to work together to ensure that virtualisation is a success. One person should oversee virtualisation and act as the glue that holds it together.

A SINGLE CONSOLE?
The idea of a single tool that does everything has been around for a long time. However, I doubt that anyone actually has it. In my mind, there will always be a need for additional tools for sector specific tasks or technology. However, a tool that covers the bulk of an IT managers tasks in one place would certainly make many lives easier.

The benefits of virtualisation cannot be ignored; the large growth in the market indicates that all businesses will virtualise eventually. IT professionals need to communicate with their suppliers in order to ensure they are utilising the best technology solutions to deal with the challenges of virtualisation. Coordination between members of the IT team is vital to the smooth running of the virtualisation process and it will ultimately determine the speed and ease of transition.