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According to Symantec’s 2008 “State of the Data Center” report, data center managers must try to satisfy two opposite but equal forces: user requirements that seems to get more demanding every year, and budget requirements that really are constraining spending more than ever.

In an article at AMEInfo.com, Rob Soderbery, senior vice president of Symantec’s Storage and Availability Management Group, was quoted: “Attention has turned to initiatives that will drive immediate cost reduction, rather than longer term ROI driven programs. Storage has been a primary focus of these initiatives as the demand for capacity continues to rise, despite economic challenges.”

The demand for lowered costs in the current budget year means that staff numbers will go down, while labor requirements will likely go up since existing staff is being asking to maintain hardware that is being pushed to the far end of its life cycle. Of course, server consolidation is the logical answer to this dilemma, but consolidation still requires an at least modest upfront investment to begin reaping the cost savings inherent in the technology.

Smart IT managers and executives will finely hone their arguments in favor of virtualization now, showing how a little bit of cash outlay now will more than pay for itself by the end of the year.