We have just agreed to outsource to a company, and I am suspicious of a few of their decisions.
We were in the middle of purchasing new HP blades (top-spec) and a Netapps SAN in preparation for virualisation. Add VoIP, Exchange 2007, iShared Packeteers at the edge and all of those projects have now been ceased.
The outsourcer claims as they have to support our infrastructure, they should choose. Since we continue to own our hardware I find this annoying. They tendered to support our infrastructure in the ‘old’ setup, this is by far a massive improvement.
I believe they are hoping to grab more business from us, charging significant sums.
Also, would you perform a seperate Server Optimisation project prior to virtualisation, or do you believe (like me) that optimisation is a phase of virtualisation, and can be performed during the virtualisation project.
Any info you have at this critical due diligence/contract stage is appreciated.