Preliminary analysis: Determine what servers need to be consolidated. Take into account the applications being used and the departments involved. Research the hardware and software needs and costs.

Design a plan for the consolidation and secure approval and budget from upper management.

The primary justifications in the plan are cost savings and the need to remain competitive in today's business environment. The plan should also address IT management of the servers after the consolidation takes place.

Communicate with users about the proposed plan and identify the advantages of the plan before implementing the consolidation. Involve users in the planning process.

Do a proof of concept for the consolidation. Prototype the consolidation with a smaller number of servers that are not in production to see if your plan works.

In the next section, two sample configurations are provided for demonstrating a proof of concept for consolidation.

Implement the consolidation on actual production servers.

In the months following the consolidation, implement a procedure to evaluate its effectiveness and the effectiveness of the IT management processes for the consolidated servers.