The process starts with Dell's Virtualization Readiness Assessment (VRA). The VRA provides companies with a way to evaluate the impact a virtual infrastructure will have on its data center, according to the company. Dell believed that the service indicates the potential financial savings of a virtual infrastructure and explains how a virtualized environment could improve server management, maximize uptime and streamline deployment, and enable a company to simplify and scale operations to meet present and future demands.

Dell's partners in the initiative include VMware, Microsoft, Redhat and Novell/SuSE.

Dell said it provides a number of other virtualization services including "health checks," infrastructure and migration workshops, and design and implementation services that include proof-of-concept testing prior to deployment. The aim, said Dell, is to provide a single source for a tested and vendor-validated virtualized solution.

The Texas company said its services division aims to provide an end-to end virtualization solution that simplifies IT and helps its customers design, configure, test migrate and maintain their systems, as well as reap the benefits of virtualization.

Dell quoted four reference sites for its services. The first is Deelgemeente Ijsselmonde, a local authority in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The system Dell helped set up helps to deliver key community services to its surrounding population, via a consolidated server environment.

The second reference site, said Dell, is Belgian consultancy ARCADIS, which has implemented a SAN with a virtualized system that makes disaster recovery simpler and represents a step toward an efficient disaster recovery plan.

Third, AZ Vesalius, a hospital in Belgium, is using a virtual server infrastructure to improve scalability to support the hospital's growth, according to Dell. And lastly, when the Marienhaus Klinikum Hospital in Germany needed a dependable IT Infrastructure for its 24/7 medical services, incorporating a backup strategy for business continuity, it did so with the help of Dell's virtualization services.

"Increasingly, companies are looking for ways to make themselves more agile and competitive as well as create the most efficient IT infrastructure within the organization," said Dell's infrastructure consulting director, Francois Argouges. "By managing and scaling resources as needed, organizations can continually refresh their IT infrastructure to support their dynamic business needs. Dell is committed to working with its customers and partners in order to deliver the most enhanced virtualization solution on the market, backed up by industry-leading support and services."