Brocade Communications Systems Inc. has created some "territorial issues," including user resistance to having to ask for increases in storage volumes. But the savings far outweigh the push-back, he said.

Parziale hasn't calculated an ROI on the project because most of the old equipment was at its end of life. However, he said the project has greatly reduced workloads and eased management headaches.

Virtualization has helped free up the IT staff's time for strategic initiatives like building the college's distance-learning program and digitally imaging paper documents to the storage network. The latter effort is intended to help safeguard important information in the event of severe weather, which often hits southern Florida.

"Also, we're always in a situation where we're looking for new staff," Parziale said. "This gave us the opportunity to reallocate our staff into other departments. The virtualization and dynamic allocation just makes it easier. There are a lot of things you don't have to worry about anymore."

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