Virtualization is revolutionizing computing. It greatly facilitates the creation and deployment of services, permitting IT to be fast on its feet in delivering the services the business requires. With virtualization, IT can deliver services to users on-demand. With this capability, IT can empower users to serve themselves in requesting services. For example, a user can request a complete application development system and have the request quickly fulfilled through the provisioning of virtual resources. This eliminates the long delays and much higher costs of provisioning physical resources.
Like all technology innovations, however, virtualization introduces IT management challenges. IT has to ensure that it effectively manages user self-service so that demand does not quickly outstrip available resources and that request fulfillment is done in compliance with internal policies and external regulations. And, because of the ease of creating and deploying virtual servers, IT has to ensure that an operating model exists to control and manage this technology so that it does not replace physical server sprawl with virtual server sprawl.
Read this white paper to learn how IT organizations can implement an effective Service Catalog that will enable them to reap the full benefits of self-service in virtualized and cloud computing environments.