Virtualization is changing the face of the IT infrastructure.
Virtualization will be the most important technology in IT infrastructures
and operations up to 2010, according to Gartner, dramatically changing
how IT departments plan for, buy, deploy, manage and charge for
their services. According to Gartner Vice President and Distinguished
Analyst Thomas Bittman, virtualization is no longer only about
server and storage consolidation and cost saving but rather the
focal point for a new view of the data center.
“It is now less about the technology and more about process
change and cultural change within organizations,” said Bittman. “Virtualization
enables alternative delivery models for services. Each virtualized
layer can be managed relatively independently or even owned by
someone else — for example, streamed applications or employee-owned
PCs. This can require major cultural changes for organizations.”
Virtualization is technology that enables a single piece of hardware
to run multiple virtual machines. The total number of virtual machines
deployed worldwide is expected to increase from 540,000 at the
end of 2006 to more than 4 million by 2009, according to Gartner,
but this is only a fraction of the potential market.
“Several things will make virtualization critical to most
enterprises in the next few years: the need to consolidate space,
power, installation and integration, and providing server resources
which are capable of responding to unpredictable workloads,” Bittman
said. “By the end of next year, virtual machine hypervisor
technology will be almost free, embedded in servers by hardware
manufacturers and in operating systems by software vendors, further
accelerating adoption.”
Changes Ahead
In addition to enabling consolidation, virtualization reduces
the number of physical servers an organization has to buy to meet
future demand. As such, it is having an impact on the server market
worldwide, according to Gartner.
“Every virtual server has the potential to take another
physical server off the market,” said Bittman. “Today
more than 90 percent of users deploying virtual machines are doing
so specifically to reduce x86 server, space and energy costs. We
believe that virtualization reduced the x86 server market by 4
percent in 2006, and by 2009 it will have a far greater impact.”
Desktop virtualization has even more potential than server virtualization
to improve the management of the IT infrastructure, according to
Bittman. Desktop virtualization is similar to server-based computing,
in which applications and their associated workloads are hosted
and managed centrally. However, desktop virtualization goes further,
providing a true desktop experience that can be accessed anytime,
anywhere, from any network-connected device.
“Virtualization on the client is perhaps two years behind,
but it is going to be much bigger. On the PC, it is about isolation
and creating a managed environment that the user can’t touch.
This will help change the paradigm of desktop computer management
in organizations. It will make the trend towards employee-owned
notebooks more manageable, flexible and secure.”
Gaining Control
Ultimately, virtualization can help organizations optimize their
IT assets by presenting them in a way that maximizes their value
to end-users and applications — rather than by device, configuration
or location. However, a November 2006 survey of 700 Gartner clients
showed that most organizations are in the very early stages of
their infrastructure and operations maturity.
“Virtualization without good management is more dangerous
than not using virtualization in the first place,” said Bittman. “Automation
is the critical next step to help organizations stop ‘virtualization
sprawl,’ which is not much better than server sprawl.”
Bittman recommends that organizations develop a vision for their
own infrastructure and build a plan to get there.
“Nothing beats infrastructure and operations when it comes
to the ability to impact IT spending, staffing and business performance,” he
said. “Despite all the talk, IT infrastructure has not become
a commodity. As technology vendors battle for control over your
IT infrastructure, having a vision of your own will help you stay
in control.”
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