Section 1.2. Target Audience

1.2. Target Audience

This book's target audience is IT professionals who are managing a sprawling physical server environment and are looking to control both costs and headaches, architects and consultants interested in server consolidation methodology, as well as anyone who is interested in becoming more familiar with VMware and the new world of a virtual infrastructure. Historically, developers have used VMware for testing; however, VMware and ESX Server have taken hold in production data centers and have growing support in all major hardware manufacturers, such as IBM, Dell, and HP. Oracle and VMware recently announced a new development relationship, and I have worked with many third-party application companies that have designed, or are currently formalizing the design for their products to run in a virtualized environment.

Included within many of the book's following chapters are a lot of step-by-step instructions with associated screenshots that will make your mental transition from the physical world to the virtual world that much easier. By the end of the book, I hope you'll be as excited about virtualization as I am, and think it as cool as I do.