Virtualization reaches the application layer.

Many organizations are turning to application virtualization to address business challenges that in turn will impact data center operations. The following is a simple real-world scenario simulation, putting into context what enterprise IT faces every day: how to align IT with changing business priorities. In this case, increased business demand is driving change into the application and data center ...

To effectively compete and differentiate themselves in the market, a telecommunications company--Innovative Telco--makes the business decision to offer a new innovative service program they are calling "Free 90-Day Trial--No Strings Attached". The premise of the program is to get subscribers to switch from their existing phone service for a "Free 90-Day Trial" of Innovative Telco's service and support. If the customer doesn't find their service and support to be any better than the previous carrier, the customer has the option to switch back at no cost. Innovative Telco will pay the switching charges and usage for that 90-day trial period.

This seems like a great deal--for the customer! The catch for the IT team: this program has to be launched in 45 days.

What about the stress and pressure this puts on Innovative Telco's IT team? Like most customer-facing applications at Innovative Telco, the application supporting this program is a static and siloed application that is running on dedicated data center infrastructure. It has never processed the amount of orders it will likely process with this new service program. Innovative Telco is going to need to make significant changes to the application in an effort to handle the increase in application demand and keep customers satisfied--past the 90-day trial period.

As a result, Innovative Telco asks themselves several questions:

  How will our IT staff support the volume of potential customers that
  will test drive this new service?
  Will the application supporting this program need to change?
  How will our IT staff address and handle these proposed changes and
  meet our program delivery date?
  Will they be able to make these application changes in real-time, as
  demand increases, without manual intervention?
  Will they be able to maintain the application's need to be highly
  available, meeting the 99.99999% service levels or will they need to
  take the application down to make the changes?

Innovative Telco is trying to find a way to handle these changes and compete effectively through innovation. To support this new program, the application must be able to adapt in real-time to changes in business requirements and user demands. In short, meeting their service level commitments based on their current IT environment will be nearly impossible. How does Innovative Telco address their challenges with IT adaptability?

To virtualize the application and unshackle or decouple it from the infrastructure would solve many of their issues and allow them to go to market with this program with plenty of time to spare. Application virtualization will help the Innovative Telco team responsible for delivering this program--IT Managers, Architects, and Business application owners--handle the necessary changes by matching the supply of available server resources with the application's demand in a flexible and intelligent way. There are three key capabilities they should look for in when virtualizing their application(s):

  Decoupling the application from the dedicated data center
  infrastructure, breaking down the stove piped application to simplify
  manageability and help in deploying application changes in less time.
  Aggregating all server capacity into a single, virtual resource pool
  leveraging all capacity in the data center for improved application
  performance and availability.
  Allocating resources to the application in real-time through policy-
  based automation--based on demand, schedule, or priority--giving
  Innovative Telco command and control over their complex enterprise
  application even as order volumes skyrocket.

With 45 days to launch this program, using a static and siloed application, it would seem this program will not be successful, much less get off the ground. However, if they focus on the three areas above, there are huge benefits.

Innovative Telco will be able to manage complexity through automated application provisioning and centralized configuration management The key is to centralize all application changes, patches, and updates so they get deployed adaptively (when needed without manual intervention). This will help them manage this program and the application in a "lights out" fashion.

If there is a problem with a given application change, they can rollback to the last known good version which allows them to continue to meet service levels and maintain high availability even during the most volatile and increasing demand.

By pooling server resources (supply), measuring application load (demand), and centralizing application configuration for rapid deployment, Innovative Telco will experience a highly available application environment, increase in IT staff productivity, and improved operational efficiency.

Innovative Telco is not alone. Their challenges aren't unlike challenges other organizations face each and every day. Organizations are always trying to stay one step ahead of their competitors and any type of program, promotion or push to close more deals or reduce costs will inevitably place a burden on data center operations and the applications that support them. Application virtualization provides organizations the needed competitive edge. Business demand will always determine the allocated resources, and thriving organizations will always find a way to quench the demand. Characteristics that define today's successful, market-leading organization are:

  Innovative thinking, willing to be aggressive
  Ability to differentiate from the competition
  Ability to adapt to changes in real-time, without delay or manual
  intervention

It will be Innovative Telco's ability to adapt to ever-changing demand, control resource supply in the data center, and address business change with IT adaptability that will prove to be the deciding factor in the hyper-competitive telecommunications market--win or lose.

Shayne Higdon is vice president, product marketing for DataSynapse

www.datasynapse.com