If you talk to CIOs who really “get” virtualization, the benefit that excites them the most is not cost savings but agility. I’m talking about the ability to say yes, quickly, to a business side request. Virtualization is helping smart IT leaders morph from “no” people to “yes” people. That’s a huge shift for many IT organizations and companies. But in order to be a yes person, you need to have enough carefully-managed virtual infrastructure on hand.

This is where virtualization management tools from the likes of Akorri and CiRBA, which released an updated version of its software this week, can earn their keep.

You’re not thinking about virtualization capacity planning on an ongoing basis? Big mistake, says IDC research director Stephen Elliot, a good source on virtualization best practices. (IDC is a sister company to CXO Media.)

“Many IT organizations start with the idea that capacity planning is a one time project, when in fact it should be an ongoing discipline as virtualization usage proliferates, Elliot says. “Right now, most IT organizations use capacity planning through an initial services engagement, and not as an ongoing demand management technique. This will change over time for IT organizations that understand that virtualization is really about the application services, and the opportunity to increase IT agility.”

Read the article by Laurianne Mclaughlin at Networld World here