Ron Oglesby, Dell's Virtualization Practice Executive, authored an article on Virtualization.Info discussing his thoughts around an optimal adoption curve for virtualization. He shares his model for calculating virtualization adoption and provides insights into getting the most ROI when you virtualize your environment.

Some of Ron's key points included:

1. "Everything can run in a VM today."
2. "... since 2004 I have been telling customers that 80% of their environment could be virtualized, yet most of these companies (5 years later) are nowhere near that. Why?"
3. Below is the Virtualization Adoption Power Band based on Ron's model. Using his model, you can calculate where you stand in your virtualization adoption curve.

Virtualization Adoption Power Band Chart
4. And this important because as Ron states in his article:
"Running something outside of a VM today should be the exception to the rule. CAPEX and OPEX expenditures for a standalone physical server can be two or three times higher than a virtual server and this alone should dictate that VMs are the dominant platform in any environment today."

Ron makes the point that 80% of a customer’s environment could have been virtualized in 2004 and now 5 years later, they are nowhere close to that target of 80% and realizing their full savings and efficiency. That was my major take-away from this paper.

Please check out Ron Oglesby's article and provide feedback and comments. Also, you can follow Ron on twitter at @ronoglesby.