When a company grows, the pressure is on the IT department to simultaneously enhance the data processing capacity. The usual response is to install new servers with different operating environments. The result is a huge server park which incurs significant costs for operation, management and upgrades.

Fulfilling the following requirements has become imperative for IT departments:

• Higher efficiency in system maintenance

• Quicker implementation and provision of new systems to fulfil business requirements

• Sourcing technology to lower cost of capital, human resources and operating costs

• Server consolidation using VMware offers a solution to these challenges

Virtual infrastructures enable a hitherto unknown dimension of workload isolation and comprehensive resource controlling for all of the system's data processing and E/A resources. The virtual infrastructure can be easily integrated into existing system management software and improves ROI (Return on Investment) by sharing a data storage area (SAN).

By consolidating physical systems on servers inside a data centre with a virtual VMware infrastructure, companies can benefit from the following advantages:

• Lower costs for purchase and maintenance of hardware

• Consolidation of all unused system resources

• More operating efficiency

• Cost-efficient and homogenous production environments

VMware technology allows the use of different versions of operating systems and even different operating systems, all running simultaneously on the same hardware.