How good is virtualization?

http://www.it-director.com/blogs/Freeform_Comment/2007/11/
The_enthusiasm_and_frustration_surrounding_Virtualization.html

Earlier this week I presented some survey results that Freeform Dynamics has obtained covering Virtualization for a Web seminar held on www.TheRegister.com. Whilst many of the findings were in line with my expectations, there were one or two that succeeded in raising my eyebrows.

The survey’s results indicate that, overall, the vast majority of respondents (almost 80 percent) are either ‘very positive’ or ‘positive on balance’ about virtualisation. Now we have to take into account the nature of the survey which was held on The Register’s web site and would naturally attract those with either experience of virtualisation or at least some interest in the area. However it does look good for virtualisation as a whole as fewer than 10 percent responded that they were either ‘very negative’ or ‘negative on balance’ and indeed it is only respondents from smaller organisations that get anywhere near to the 10 percent level of negativity.

Check out this article talking about feedback in the world of virtualization. It’s an interesting debate, and I love to hear how people are benefiting from the technology, what issues they’ve had and so on. It’s good to see people seeming positive about the technology, though as with anything you’re always going to have people that didn’t quite get the benefits they expected from the platform.

Virtualization can be a real business enabler, a way of providing the IT infrastructure in a more energy efficient way, as well as allowing the business to have a more on-demand, fluid type infrastructure. One of the ideals would be when we can get to a follow the sun model, an infrastructure that runs with your business around the globe following where the energy is cheapest at that specific time, with a fluid type failover. That I could have my New York teams run from London whilst the server guys update the New York infrastructure is the kind of evolution of the platform that could be a real enabler, the investment, the planning and the applications all need to be in line with the infrastructure, as does your business processes, the charge back.

One Response to “How good is virtualization?”

1. Vinf says:

   November 15, 2007 at 15:19

   Great post, fluid infrastructure is a very interesting idea.. I’ve blogged further on the idea at vinf.net

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