Server Virtualization

In the future, business decisions will drive application choices and policies. The application will provide its requirements to a highly virtualized platform and the platform will take over and perform many of the manual tasks handled by IT administrators today. Compute capacity will be distributed across large hardware resource pools connected by network connections of different speeds and protocols, all tied to storage and data that spans different storage systems on different continents. Protection, security, and performance a will be policy-driven based on the data. In order to optimize cost and utilization, data is moved from place to place based on lifecycle, requirements, and usefulness of data itself—enabling completely liquid IT.

This all may seem too good to be true, but look at what server virtualization has already done in a relatively short time. It has introduced efficiencies and optimization that had been cumbersome and costly in the past. For example, ESG consistently sees business continuity and disaster recovery as a primary driver to server virtualization implementations. IT has already begun to recognize that sever virtualization extends well beyond server consolidation and improved resource utilization.

With the great success server virtualization has experienced, a massive opportunity still lies ahead:

1. Tier-1 applications. It has been relatively simple for IT for virtualize the first 20% to 30% of applications, but the next 5% remains a challenge. Now is the time for IT operations to work with the “server huggers” to build confidence in the virtualized platform. Technology vendors will have to arm application and line of business owners with best practices, blueprints, and frameworks that are application-specific and demonstrate the value of a virtualized platform.  Expect to see solution purchasing trends that are also application-specific, are massively scalable, and are designed and delivered on a virtualized platform.
2. Management and automation. Data center orchestration and management will play a monumental role in virtualization investments as companies drive toward 100% virtualized environments and begin to build applications specifically targeted for the platform. Microsoft, for example, is making a giant push with System Center messaging and aligning with key technology partners, indicating a clear focus on System Center as the management solution for physical and virtual environments.  Now that virtualized environments have successfully matured, IBM, CA, HP, and BMC are all upping their game as well.
3. Multi-hypervisor deployments. Just as IT has managed and maintained a heterogeneous operating system environment, evidence also suggests that multiple hypervisors will be deployed. IT is heterogeneous by nature, so this makes complete sense. All hypervisors essentially do the same job, but licensing fees for proprietary products are driving enterprises to adopt a second free product. The increasing maturity of Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V are grabbing enterprise attention, but VMware is not necessarily being displaced where it exists.
4. Platform affinity. For the last few years, the virtualization market has been ripe with a steady stream of features that complement the core virtualization platform. At this point, the technology has actually surpassed deployments in many cases. Expect to see virtualization vendors continue to share their visionary strategic roadmaps with the end-user community in an effort to shift more applications over to the virtualized platform and establish a strong hold inside the data center. Keep a keen eye on how each vendor will approach the situation: VMware with its core vSphere platform, Microsoft with System Center, Oracle from an application perspective, Citrix with a data center to desktop strategy, and Cisco in the areas of unified platforms and data center networking.

Higher level IT priorities are also helping accelerate the migration to a virtualized platform via:

• Centralization of core IT assets, IT personnel, and applications.
• Consolidation of services, operations, resources, and infrastructure.
• Shared services of resources, professional services, and infrastructure.
• Budget and cost control driven by cost reduction, avoidance, and activity-based pricing.
• Security highlighted with improved safeguards, enterprise policies, data protection, and mitigation of insider threats.

The Bigger Truth

The success of virtualization can be measured by the fact that business decision-makers have worked it into their conversations and become proponents of the technology. In many cases, it is a top IT priority due to its ability to save time, reduce capital expenditures, and greatly improve overall data center efficiency. However, challenges lie ahead as IT works to take the initial success of virtualization and transition it to more business production workloads. The interesting fact is that the transition will have little to do with technology and will instead be heavily weighted toward IT and business process.

Application owners and ISVs largely hold the keys to the next wave of server virtualization success. Application choices, migrations, upgrades, and hardware refresh cycles will act as catalysts for change and potential opportunities to move workloads to the virtual platform. New application deployments will also drive deployment choice. ISVs that see the value in virtualization will transparently build in server virtualization for improved availability, simplified maintenance, and additional value to their customers.

Investing in server virtualization should be a no-brainer for a certain class of predictable workloads—IT often has in-depth knowledge regarding these applications and their performance characteristics. Constant analysis is essential to maintaining momentum as organizations target the next wave of applications suitable for virtualizing. Additionally, management tools that provide visibility, performance metrics, and modeling will help tune investments in virtualization and drive increased confidence for future applications.

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