Virtualization Strategies News, Analysis, White Papers and Case Studies on Virtualization Software and Hardware Strategies

There has been a lot said this year about cloud computing. One could say the the whole subject is “a little cloudy.” This video from rPath does a great job of explaining cloud computing in plain english. It’s only 5 minutes long and worth your time if your trying to understand the connection between cloud computing and virtulaization. It also does a great job contrasting cloud computing with Software as a Service or SaaS.

I like the analogy of SaaS being like buying a car, where Virtualization is more like leasing a car and Cloud Computing is like having a taxi at your service. If you see other useful video’s like this please comment below or send me a link. Thanks!

Posted under Cloud Computing, Data Center Virtualization, SaaS, Virtualization Video

An agreement between Mitel and Sun Microsystems has produced the world’s first virtualized voice and data desktop, providing businesses with lower operating costs, simplified IT management, and enhanced security. With the combination of Mitel call control on Sun servers and the Mitel Unified IP Client for Sun Ray^TM, Mitel and Sun have delivered the first ultra thin desktop solution, providing a simplified, device-secure authentication source for voice and data hot desking and mobility.

The Mitel Unified IP Client for Sun Ray provides businesses with a complete voice and data solution in a virtualized environment that reduce desktop hardware costs and simplifies network management while driving business value.

Read More…

Posted under Desktop Virtualization, Virtualization News, Virtualization Products / Reviews

There are several methods for server virtualization. This video from Infoworld offers a nice overview of three configurations for server virtualization:

• Virtualization
• Paravirtualization
• OS Virtualization

Check back next week as I’ll dive deeper in to the strategies and benefits of these three virtualization strategies.

Posted under Hardware Virtualization, Server Virtualization, Virtualization Strategies, Virtualization Video

Half of All North American Developers to be Using Virtualization within 12 Months

With the recession putting downward pressure on IT and software development budgets, more application developers than ever are expected to begin working on virtualization projects, according to research firm Evans Data.

More than one-third of North American developers are currently involved with virtualization projects and 51% expect to be within the next twelve months according to Evans Data’s North American Development Survey released to subscribers last week.

The survey report of 400 developers conducted in October and November examines a broad range of software development issues.

Virtualization pioneer VMware dominates the virtualization tools market with 56% of developers involved with virtualization using its tools, and only Microsoft’s Virtual Server is a significant rival with 37% usage. Xen products from Citrix and Red Hat trail behind. Read More…

Posted under Virtualization News, Virtualization Strategies

Despite all that has been said about the benefits of server virtualization, most IT organizations have only virtualized a small portion of their servers - if any. According to Philip Dawson, a research vice president at Gartner only about 10 percent of today’s physical servers are virtualized, but within three years, that number could grow to 60 percent.

The reason is virtualization allows IT administrators to run multiple applications and operating systems on a single server, which helps organization reduce costs and increase efficiency. As virtualization continues to be a growing force in data centers, IT managers need the right strategies to successfully reconfigure their servers and prepare for the ripple effects on related technology infrastructure, such as storage and networks.

Here are six steps to successful server virtualization.

1) Be a bore, plan some more
Rather than being a one-size-fits-all solution, server virtualization must address the unique goals and resources of each agency that implements the strategy. The primary goal of a virtualization project might be reducing the number of physical servers, improving hardware use, cutting power consumption, bolstering disaster recovery capabilities or a combination of those objectives. Information technology managers must clearly define a practical endpoint and strategy based on the organizations existing resources and any restrictions imposed by budget and staff expertise. Read More…

Posted under Server Virtualization, Storage Virtualization, Virtualization Strategies

At the Gartner Data Center event this week in Las Vegas, Thomas Bittman, a Gartner data center research vice president predicted the installed base of virtual machines will grow tenfold between 2007 and 2011. By 2012, the majority of x86 server workloads will be running in virtualization software.

“Virtualization is the most important and impact trend in IT infrastructure and operations through 2012-changing how you manage, what you buy, how you deploy, how you plan, how you charge. It also shakes up the industry, in terms of licensing, pricing and component management,” Bittman said.

Virtualization, however, is merely an enabler to some other important future trends, he said. Because virtualization creates a pool of manageable, flexible capacity, automation should take that pool of resources and do useful work, based on business policies and service-level requirements.

Also, the decoupling created by virtualization combined with defined service offerings and automation is a great enabler of cloud computing, Bittman said.

Bittman laid out the following eight bullet points that describe the nature of computing and storage virtualization over the next five years: Read More…

Posted under Cloud Computing, Data Center Virtualization, Virtualization News, Virtualization Strategies

VMware on Tuesday released VMware View 3, new software aimed at providing desktop virtualization, application virtualization and management of virtual desktops in one product.  This technology helps IT organizations reduce storage cost, improve user experience and enables IT to rapidly provision and update thousands of desktop from a single image.

This is a major advance in virtual desktop computing. With VMware View 3, IT organizations can “decouple” a desktop from specific physical devices or locations to create a personalized view of a user’s desktop, applications, and data that is securely accessible from almost any device, at any time. By hosting these virtual desktop images in the datacenter using VMware View 3 IT personnel can provision and manage thousands of virtual desktops simply, securely, and with substantially lower operating costs. Read More…

Posted under Desktop Virtualization, Virtualization News, Virtualization Products / Reviews, Virtualization Software

VMware, Inc. announced plans to bring virtualization and its many proven benefits to mobile phones through the new VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP). VMware MVP will help handset vendors reduce development time and get mobile phones with value-added services to market faster. In addition, end users will benefit by being able to run multiple profiles - for example, one for personal use and one for work use - on the same phone.

“VMware is excited to extend the benefits of virtualization to the mobile phone market,” said Paul Maritz, president and chief executive officer of VMware. “By abstracting the applications and data from the hardware itself, we expect that virtualization will not only enable handset vendors to accelerate time to market but can also pave the way for innovative applications and services for phone users. We look forward to working closely with our partners to bring new mobile solutions to market faster.”

It’s not just VMWare that gets excited about virtualization for mobile phones; Gartner research sees virtualization in the mobile space as a very promising and potentially a fast emerging market.  “We predict that by 2012, more than 50% of new smart phones shipped will be virtualized.  Read More…

Posted under Virtualization News, Virtualization Products / Reviews, Virtualization Strategies