The Dell IT group uses a server farm running virtualization software to provide more than 1,000 test and development environments on fewer than 100 physical servers. This farm enables Dell IT to manage the test and development environments with a small team of administrators, allowing engineers and developers to focus on a wide range of internal projects and minimize time spent setting up test environments.

As Dell continues to grow globally, requirements for new applications and updates to existing applications place increasing demands on the Dell IT group infrastructure. Dell IT must be able to scale its computing resources while containing the capital costs and staffing resources needed to efficiently manage these systems. Using a virtual infrastructure for test and development helps Dell to maximize its computing resources with improved server utilization, operational cost-effectiveness, and productivity through rapid provisioning. This article discusses the virtualization best practices Dell IT has developed as well as the architecture of its large server farm—which is an example of how Dell uses a scalable enterprise architecture based on industry-standard hardware and software to achieve tangible benefits today. It also discusses future plans and expected directions for virtualization technology used by Dell.

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