Figure 9.1 Traditional process for requesting virtual machines that is hands-on for
the administrator
This process sounds fast, but in reality it ranges from a few days to six weeks in some
companies for which I’ve worked. It’s a manual process, IT teams are busy, they just
don’t like the particular business user, or there could be “solar activity disrupting
electronics” (which is the same as not liking the user). Whatever the case, because it’s
a manual process, it takes time and is often fairly low on the priority list.
It can also be fairly hard to track the allocation of virtual machines, which often
means that there is no ability to charge business units for the requested virtual
machines. This can lead to virtual machine sprawl, because to the business the virtual
machines are free.