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

Blade.org announced the results of a virtualization adoption survey which show that both large enterprises, and small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) have moved rapidly to adopt virtualization technologies using blade servers as their preferred hardware platform.

“Blade.org’s survey found that 82 percent of large IT organizations have implemented or are planning to implement virtualization on blade servers in the data center,” said Lisa Galish, Blade.org Marketing Committee chairperson. “However, even in SMB organizations, 28 percent have already virtualized on blade servers with an additional 36 percent in the planning stage. Blade servers have fundamental advantages in infrastructure consolidation, ease of management and cost reduction features that make them an ideal platform for virtualization technologies.” Read More…

Posted under Data Center Virtualization, Server Virtualization, Virtualization Case Studies, Virtualization News, virtualization

Cisco introduced its first server last week in a bid to help unify the data centers into one cohesive unit. By extending its product line, Cisco will also capture a larger share of spending in the still hot and growing data center market.

The approach, called a Unified Computing System, takes new Cisco networking equipment and packages it with Cisco’s first blade server, storage hardware and virtualization software. It expands Cisco’s role beyond networking and into the unfamiliar territory of server manufacturing, which is dominated by partners IBM and Hewlett-Packard.

Cisco’s packaged system, which will go on sale in the second quarter, will provide an especially flexible and efficient architecture, enabling IT managers to get more out of their hardware. “It gives us a chance to be the leading company not just in communications but in IT,” said Cisco CEO John Chambers.

Chambers said the rise of virtualization in the last few years helped prompt Cisco to expand its role in the data center. Read More…

Posted under Data Center Virtualization, Server Virtualization, Virtualization News

This week at AFCOM’s Data Center World event in Las Vegas, the AFCOM Data Center Institute announced it’s Five Bold Predictions for the data center.  These predictions are:

1)      By 2015, the talent pool of qualified senior level technical and managerial talent to run data centers will shrink by 45%. This is alarming when you consider the dramatic growth in business data processing. The economy can be to blame as training programs are often quick to be cut. The other challenge is fewer students are opting for collegiate programs in high density computing. Companies like Data Center Journal offer excellent data center training programs.

2)      By 2010, more than half of all data centers will have to relocate to new facilities or outsource some applications. This is great news for firms that build date centers as well as colocation and managed services companies Read More…

Posted under Cloud Computing, Data Center Virtualization, Virtualization News

Over the past several years, virtualization has emerged as an easy and reliable way to improve disaster preparedness. This technology provides companies the ability to dramatically increase the efficiency and availability of their resources in the event of a disaster. Using virtualization, enterprises can ensure they are back online within minutes or hours, rather than days, weeks or months.

Most companies — from small businesses to fortune 500 corporations — are not prepared to recover from a fire, flood or other major disasters. Their DR plans are either weak or non-existent.

Here are some of the most common problems we find with traditional DR plans:

* Many are half baked.

* The plan is untested.

* Not all outsource partners are prepared.

* Recovery and production environments are incompatible.

Companies are increasingly abandoning their old DR platforms, and turning to virtualization technology to prepare their business for disaster and safeguard their assets. Read More…

Posted under Data Center Virtualization, Virtualization Strategies

Cisco Systems is preparing to enter the server market as early as March, according to an article in the New York Times. The article, which claims to have inside sources, said Cisco aims to sell a server combining hardware and virtualization software from Cisco and VMWare Inc.

Speculation on Cisco’s move into the server market has been going on for several months. Many experts agree that this is a logical extension for a company that has a dominate market share in other network products like switches and routers. One interesting thing to watch is how long time allies like HP and IBM will feel about Cisco competing with them in the server market.

Virtualization technology offer business tremendous benefits and a networking company like Cisco see an opportunity to produce a new, potentially disruptive class of hardware and software management systems that span an entire data center. With businesses looking to manage their data centers as a single entity rather than separate units, Cisco’s entrance in the server market could make them the core supplier of data center technologies (Cisco has a minority stake in VMWare – the leading supplier of virtualization software. Read More…

Posted under Data Center Virtualization, Server Virtualization, Virtualization News, Virtualization Products / Reviews

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

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, 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

Cisco announced it is collaborating with VMware to deliver a storage area networks (SANs) designed specifically to help businesses improve the security, scalability and management of storage networks attached to VMware environments. This solution is  in line with Cisco’s increasing focus on being a key vendors for companies building next generation data centers.  Cisco refers to this as “Data Center 3.0″ which  entails the real-time, dynamic orchestration of infrastructure services from shared pools of virtualized server, storage and network resources, while optimizing application performance, service levels, efficiency and collaboration.

Virtual machines allow IT  managers to run multiple applications and operating systems on a single physical machine. Virtualizing the data center improves resource use and provides a simpler and more efficient computing model to meet customer needs. The combined solution of Cisco MDS SANs with the VMware platform helps customers to more easily implement storage consolidation, disaster recovery, business continuity and storage backup solutions, as well as improve the visibility, security, and traffic isolation of applications. Read More…

Posted under Data Center Virtualization, Hardware Virtualization, Server Virtualization, Storage Virtualization, Virtualization News, Virtualization Products / Reviews, Virtualization Software