Where is your company when it comes to virtualisation? Have you considered your storage infrastructure as you take on server virtualisation projects? Maybe you’re assessing initial projects? Or ready to implement your virtualisation strategy across a broader scale and scope? Perhaps you are looking for information on specific virtualisation products and solutions?

No matter the size of your organisation – or where you are in the virtualisation journey – you’ll find food for thought in this special report that links numerous articles focused on:

• Storage for your virtual server infrastructure
• Data centre transformation through advanced storage virtualisation

In these articles, you’ll gain valuable insights into ways to build a master plan for your infrastructure that makes the most of your investments in virtualisation.

You’ll also learn how and why the secret to success lies in the realisation that virtualisation is not simply a server or storage technology. It’s the convergence of servers, storage, networking and applications in a way that fundamentally changes how you use the resources in your entire IT infrastructure.

This in turn helps you not only cut costs and reduce management complexities but also enables you to respond more quickly to business challenges. What is more, in today’s volatile economy, this ability to adapt at the drop of a hat is essential to maintaining competitive advantage.

If yours is like most companies, you started with a simple server virtualisation project. Its success in lowering application and administrative costs may well lead to another virtualisation project. And another. And another.

If that’s the case, now is a good time to step back and assess your overall virtualisation strategy.

Read 'Fresh thinking on virtualisation' and get useful insights on rethinking virtualisation as a business strategy – not just an IT tactic. The discussion focuses on three key levels of virtualisation in a larger, enterprise environment: infrastructure barriers, applications and IT operations management and client architectures.

Server virtualisation and consolidation are driving the need for more efficient storage platforms. That’s why it’s important to understand how the right storage choices can unlock server virtualisation potential. Read 'The secret to successful virtualisation' for a checklist of what to watch for as you look to make the most of your virtualisation investments. You’ll also learn when and how iSCSI SANs can give you a leg up in terms of scalability, high availability, disaster recovery and performance.

While utilisation and consolidation are driving many virtualisation projects, improved business continuity is another key benefit. With this article, 'VMware and HP: Keys to simpler business continuity', learn how HP’s ProLiant BladeSystem servers and StorageWorks solutions work hand-in-hand to solve some of the pressing problems that come with traditional business continuity plans.

Servers, storage, networking and management are all critical virtualisation components. Learn more about how they should be designed to work together as you read 'How to build the ultimate virtual infrastructure' article. Then dig deeper into the benefits of scale-out iSCSI SANs for every-sized company and branch offices in 'A cure for storage headaches', written by John Spiers, chief evangelist for HP LeftHand storage products and solutions.

Budgets are tighter than ever. No news there. But it does mean you need to more thoroughly analyse, prioritise and justify every storage purchase decision – including virtualisation solutions.

Read 'Spend smart with storage virtualisation' to get a to-the-point run-down of available storage virtualisation solutions – all ideally suited for data centre transformation projects driven by data growth and storage sprawl. The focus is on network virtualisation solutions like the HP StorageWorks SAN virtualisation Services Platform (SVSP), as well as the newest generation of HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array disk systems. The EVA family is designed to help you save up to 50 percent in common, everyday storage administrative tasks.

If you're looking for virtualisation options designed for server virtualisation projects, read 'HP LeftHand SAN Solutions'. Here you’ll find links to white papers that drill down and trigger some new thinking on server virtualisation and business continuity.

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