Virtualization isn't going anywhere. But designing a structure that improves not only your uptime, but also your organization's general efficiency, presents unique challenges.

If you haven't yet moved your business critical products to the cloud, begin your architecture design process by considering your needs, then matching those against possible vendors. If you've already moved to the cloud, but aren't experiencing the enhanced efficiency you expected, it may be time to step back and take the following actions sooner, rather than later, to help define the structure.

Your Architecture: A Customizable Adventure

Defining your architecture takes heavy planning and forward thinking. What will you be doing in the future that you should consider today? With that in mind, your first move is to think about how you want to split (or not) your eggs.

1. Choose Your Baskets

One of your foremost decisions in developing virtualization is whether you want to put your eggs all in one cloud basket or in several.

One basket makes sense if you want to develop and manage budget more easily. If you want everything in one place, with one budget, one bill to pay, one thing to worry about, that makes sense for simplification. But consider what would happen if that went down. The "one place" factor can cause disruptions in business continuity.

Choosing several baskets, then, might be more advisable. Says Twinstate's Unified Defense Strategies Technical Manager Alex Insley, "If you had a hosted exchange in one place, a separate backup provider, some stuff on premise and some on Azure, for example, then you don't have to worry about 'one thing is everything.' But then you have at least three or four places to go to manage everything, instead."

It can be hard, Insley acknowledges, to find a "single pane of glass" cloud platform. But there are a few out there, and they appear to be getting better. If hybrid is the way you want to go, refer to ZDNet's list of the 15 most important hybrid vendors to help you make your decision.

2. Create Use Cases

It's crucial to your decision process that you know exactly what you want to use virtualization services for. Are you interested specifically in server consolidation? Availability? Failover? Whatever your needs, establishing them prior to creating your architecture can help you move in the right direction.

You should also evaluate virtualization products based on use cases that could possibly emerge in the future. There is no greater blow to your efficiency than finding out a year too late that the product you purchased doesn't meet your most recently revealed needs.

(Note: If you already have critical business products in the cloud, but migrated them there without developing use cases first, you can work on this now to get the most from your architecture in the future. Use cases can help you decide how to proceed and reveal whether or not you need to consider a different solution.)

3. Review the Structure of Your Organization

Your organization's operational structure, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, can seriously impact your design decisions. Why?

One less concrete reason: to create a successful architecture, you need buy-in. Establishing needs during your use case creation process is certainly a start. But knowing that everyone in your organization agrees and has signed off on your decisions is even better. Reviewing your organizational structure can help you discover exactly how you're supporting certain departments with the solutions you're choosing, in turn helping you prove the benefits and gain buy-in.

A more concrete reason: people in your organization may work on different platforms. Says Insley, "When you have multiple base platforms to worry about, you need to cover yourself to ensure access is limited, and that the people who need access to do their jobs have it, but that it stays limited to what they need."

4. Design Around Your Information

With your use cases and organizational structure in mind, you can begin to design your architecture and select a vendor accordingly. Insley suggests tackling one aspect at a time, and planning like crazy first. He also recommends mental preparation -- for yourself and the people whose efficiency your architecture will support.

Write This Down

Of course, Insley says, one of the most important aspects is how you document it. His advice is simple: "Document. Document, document, document." Whether you're just entering the planning phase or you already have your virtualization architecture in place, it's vital that you document everything.

"Ask: What are my standard operating procedures for working with this vendor or that vendor?" Insley says. How do we treat workstation A differently than workstation B? Who has access to what, and when? A lot of upkeep requires a lot of documentation, he notes. But as we know from the age-old "hit by a bus" security adage, having documented insight into your network's needs is a must.