Governance in a Virtualised World

The approaches to governance in a virtual environment, the level of granularity needed and the processes and knowledge in place to keep it maintained.

As more and more virtual machines are deployed within organisations, they must be managed with the same rigour as any physical system. Administrators need to put in more time and effort managing configurations, patches, software levels and security; and they must monitor many more systems for performance, penetration, resource utilisation, and capacity and licence management. Effective governance is paramount.

This workshop discussed governance models and frameworks in a world of mixed virtualised and physical environments and was attended by 17 delegates representing 12 organisations from a wide cross-section of industries including aerospace, automobile, central government, brewing and leisure, pharmaceuticals, transport, retail, energy and utilities, media and recruitment.

The workshop considered the following topics:

• Governance to manage growth and capacity
• Granularity of Governance Policies and Frameworks
• Aligning Virtual and Physical Governance
• Analysis and Reporting Tools
• Governance of Outsourced Suppliers
• Virtual Products and Platforms