Cloud Strategy Using distributed existing hardware. Is this possible?

[Tim L]

We have several thousand physical servers sitting in separate datacenters in separate networks.  Each of these servers are used in the conventional manner with a single OS instance and some sort of application running.  This leads to a massive undersubscription of compute resources.  Most of our servers are using under 30% of their compute power.

I'd like to start a process of converting these servers into a cloud by installing a virtualization layer on top of the hardware and using them to host VMs.  Hopefully to consolidate some of these server instances on less hardware.  

I'd also like to utilize the local disk on these servers to create a distributed storage solution for the cloud.  Something like gluster.  

Please let me know if you have any suggestions for a product that can work in this scenario.  Since we have so much underutilized hardware, I want to avoid standing up new hardware to build out the cloud.  

[Ono Adiohwo]

Interesting as you'd find this is becoming common in most organizations.

Well am sure there are software and tools out there you can use to consolidate your current under utilized hardware. VMware vCloud Director might come in handy.

Out of curiosity what do your company operate as? hosting etc.

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