Business Productivity and Performance

The Business Case

Virtualisation offers improved productivity, especially with network and application management. You are able to provision a computer with just a few clicks. No more waiting weeks for a new work station to be set up. You can provision five applications for that user based on their role. When a user arrives at work, they would be taken through the business induction process, and the user account is created. You know the business rules and so does the system, therefore their applications are provisioned automatically.

This means that when the user sits at their desk, on their first morning, they have what they need and they are able to do the job they were employed for. With no involvement from IT.

The system knows what applications are needed to do the job and it’s smart enough to figure out how to deliver them, no matter where the user is and what computer they are using.

The Technology Solution

With current infrastructure everything is intrinsically linked to everything else, Those connections create the barriers to flexibility. The operating system is tied to the hardware, the applications are tied into the operation system.

What Virtualisation allows you to do is break down those barriers so you can move operating systems around across your hardware, move applications on the end point devices, and that gives you the flexibility.

Another important element is really looking at not just how you deliver information to your users, but also that you have what Microsoft call ‘single version of the truth.’ You have a single known repository for a particular information type inside the organisation. Imagine am employee wanting to know what the standard pricing model is for x, y and z product. They know where to get that information, they know where the most up to date copy is and they know that that’s always maintained.

At this point in time, a lot of organisations have a very ad hoc structure and process around that. “Oh it’s in his email.” Virtualised systems capture all of the information in one place, make it easily accessible and allow this “single version of the truth”.