Many IT administrators have already learned the hard way that managing the performance and availability of services built on virtualization technologies can be difficult. Often, early adopters of virtualization have struggled with limited technology features and stability constraints, while learning new ways to effectively manage capacity requirements.

Fortunately, some platforms now offer clustering solutions that are mature enough to automate the balancing of workloads across physical resources. When combined with disciplined capacity planning and sound deployment configurations, it is possible to achieve fast, scalable, and highly available IT services using virtualization platforms.