Key Information Systems and Avnet Partner Solutions have teamed up to offer businesses a detailed assessment of benefits they likely will see from implementing virtualization throughout their data centers.

The detailed audit-style Virtual Impact Assessment (VIA), worth about $15,000, is actually being paid for by software and hardware vendors, including IBM and Microsoft, who offer virtualization solutions and see it as a highly persuasive way of convincing upper management of the enormous savings potential and return on investment they can realize through virtualizing servers, storage, desktops, and applications.

Avnet's Frank Welder, the company's System x and BladeCenter business development manager, Americas, outlined his company's approach to creating a virtual impact assessment during a presentation to about 50 IT users from a broad spectrum of Southern California businesses at a Key and IBM-sponsored virtualization seminar in Newport Beach, Calif., last Wednesday. Representatives from VMWare, IBM, and other companies enthusiastic about the potential of virtualization were present for questions following what most attendees later agreed was an eye-opening approach to documenting the significant cost, energy, and space benefits that an investment in virtualization can bring to an IT organization.

"As technical experts, we do a good job of explaining the technology, but we don't always do a good job of explaining to management the cost benefits and return on investment from that technology," said Pete Elliot, director of Marketing for Key Information Systems. "The Virtual Impact Assessment that Avnet has developed really looks at the unique benefits that a particular organization, with a particular enterprise hardware and software implementation, can expect to realize after moving to a virtualized environment."

Depending on the size of their data center and what applications they are running, users can often achieve consolidation ratios of 10-to-1 through virtualization, cost reductions of 25 percent, and improved service levels of 20-to-50 percent, according to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., president and chief analyst of Focus Consulting. Goldworm, author of the book, Blade Servers and Virtualization, and a former IBMer, gave users at the seminar a detailed presentation of the different types of virtualization including server, storage, application, and desktop virtualization.

"When the media talk about virtualization they usually are referring to server virtualization, but there are many other types of virtualization that can benefit IT organizations," said Goldworm.

She demonstrated to attendees through a series of team-oriented problem-solving audience brain teasers that resolving tough problems-such as rising energy costs--often requires viewing a problem from different perspectives and thinking outside the box.

Goldworm noted that conventional servers on average are only 8 percent utilized but burn almost as much energy as if they were in constant use. Virtualizing servers can increase utilization by as much as ten times lowering energy costs while increasing system reliability.

Goldworm touched on nearly a dozen different types of virtualization that can be safely implemented with today's advanced tools to bring costs down in a number of areas from the more commonly known virtualized storage to the increasingly popular virtualized desktops using thin clients. Other virtualization implementations can be devised to create disaster recovery solutions, application virtualization and streaming, server-based computing, virtualized I/O, virtualized hardware assists, stateless blades, and other novel applications of the technology.

Anyone interested in applying for a virtualization impact assessment to see what effect virtual technology and consolidation could have on their company's costs may contact Pete Elliot at Key Information Systems at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Those interested should be aware the free offer is of limited duration. Not all data centers may be eligible due to size and utilization limitations.

Key Information Systems, an IBM Premier Business Partner, Microsoft Certified Partner, and  Avnet Premier Business Partner, specializes in solutions for corporate infrastructure, business continuity, and storage, while Avnet is an $18 billion global technology sales and marketing organization with more than 100,000 customers in 30 countries.

Photo 1-- Avnet's Frank Welder discusses the company's Virtual Impact Assessment program with attendees at a virtualization seminar sponsored by Key Information Systems and IBM.

Chris Smith was the Senior News Editor at MC Press Online from 2007 to 2012 and was responsible for the news content on the company's Web site. Chris has been writing about the IBM midrange industry since 1992 when he signed on with Duke Communications as West Coast Editor of News 3X/400. With a bachelor's from the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in English and minored in Journalism, and a master's in Journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Chris later studied computer programming and AS/400 operations at Long Beach City College. An award-winning writer with two Maggie Awards, four business books, and a collection of poetry to his credit, Chris began his newspaper career as a reporter in northern California, later worked as night city editor for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, and went on to edit a national cable television trade magazine. He was Communications Manager for McDonnell Douglas Corp. in Long Beach, Calif., before it merged with Boeing, and oversaw implementation of the company's first IBM desktop publishing system there. An editor for MC Press Online since 2007, Chris has authored some 300 articles on a broad range of topics surrounding the IBM midrange platform that have appeared in the company's eight industry-leading newsletters. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..