An enterprise's decision to move to a virtualized architecture will have the GREATEST impact on:

While virtualization changes how systems are deployed and managed throughout their lifecycle, the core principles of system life cycle management (planning, acquisition, implementation, operations, disposal) remain, adapting to the new environment.

Asset classification principles remain largely the same, even though the *nature* of assets shifts from purely physical to a mix of physical and virtual.

A move to a virtualized architecture often means relying more heavily on specialized virtualization software and hardware vendors, or cloud providers for IaaS/PaaS, significantly changing procurement, licensing, support contracts, and service level agreements. This fundamentally alters the vendor landscape and introduces new complexities in managing these relationships.

Vulnerability management processes adapt to virtual environments (e.g., patching virtual machines, host hypervisors), but the fundamental goal of identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities remains consistent.