Virtualization is a game-changing technology that has many IT managers looking for the best ways to roll out the technology on a large scale in their environments.

Network World this week shared with readers a handful of best practices industry watchers and enterprise IT managers suggest others take into account when rolling out virtualization. We were also able to provide a glimpse at several gotchas IT managers should avoid when evolving virtual server deployment from test and development to full-blown product environments. And a couple of industry technologist also weighed in on the topic.

Dave Malcolm, CTO of virtual lab management and automation vendor Surgient, chimed in with a few pointers on how to best approach an enterprise-wide virtualization implementation. To start, he says, "It is important to select the appropriate hardware particularly around servers and storage appliances. Larger servers tend to be better because there are fewer physical machine boundaries and therefore less wasted capacity."

Next, IT managers must test application images thoroughly to ensure optimal performance on the virtual infrastructure, Malcolm says. "This entails configuring the appropriate operating system services, removing potential security exposures and compressing image sizes," he explains. "These images need to be tested and verified in virtual machines to ensure that the applications which run within the virtual machine are performing at the desired level prior to deployment.

Lastly Malcolm recommends IT managers put in places tools to centrally manage virtual machines and virtual machine images. These tools should also incorporate life-cycle management capabilities that help IT better track virtual machines from creation to expiration. 

"The image file hierarchy and structure need to be designed such that there is reused and minimal wasted storage," Malcolm says. "Virtual machine image sprawl can be expensive in additional storage if not managed effectively."

Separately, John Suit, CTO at virtual systems management vendor Fortisphere, says IT managers need to know what is in their virtualized environment "down to the configurations, applications and virtual network utilization within the virtual machine" to optimize performance.

Denise Dubie is senior editor with Network World.