There are two questions that I am frequently asked when I attend a technology conference. The first is, “What is the big news?” and the second is, “Is there any technology that really captured your attention?” In yesterday’s blog, I answered the second question as to why I think the use of virtual appliances is going to become the new standard for backing up and recovering virtual machines. However today I want to answer the first question as to what was the big news that came out of VMworld 2009. In my view, it was clearly that the emphasis has moved from why organizations need to virtualize their environments to what new possibilities that a fully virtualized (aka cloud) environment creates.
Virtualization creates new ways of thinking the enterprise that were never really viable before but are now openly discussed and were, in a number of cases, actually demonstrated on stage at VMworld as either being currently in production or in testing. For example:
- Reductions in red tape. The only reason I even make this point is that enterprise organizations spend so much time trying to make sure that they make no mistakes when it comes to IT that they make the biggest mistake of all: they spend so much time managing IT processes that nothing gets done.
Maritz (VMware’s CEO) made the comment during his opening keynote on Tuesday that he has encountered organizations where they have to get 10 signatures in order to purchase an application server. That struck a nerve with me as I clearly recall the days from my last position where it could take that many signatures and a couple of weeks just to make simple changes in my environment. Purchasing a new server, installing it and then getting it fully configured took much longer (typically months) to complete it.
Using server virtualization, new VMs can be created and applications deployed in minutes. Granted, this flexibility can and does create new problems such as virtual machine sprawl but simple processes can be put in place to address these issues. Further, I suspect new technologies are already under development that can address this issue should it become a problem.
- Virtualization of mobile device OSes. VMware believes that cell phones are arguably the next desktop and may well become one of the principal ways that employees access corporate networks. Of course, the issue with using mobile devices (cell phones included) to access corporate networks is that they are difficult to manage and present new security risks.
The solution VMware proposes is to virtualize mobile devices like the iPhone so iPhone applications can run on one VM on the cell phone while corporate applications run on another. In this way, organizations can create and deploy VMs on employee’s mobile devices so individuals can either securely access corporate networks or run their own personal iPhone applications.
- “Follow the moon” data center operations. This is an interesting twist on current “Follow the sun” call centers operations that are located around the globe so support personnel can work during daylight hours. The “Follow the moon” approach takes a different tack. Since power demands (and costs) can drop at night, move your virtualized data center to a part of the globe that is in the dark to take advantage of lower power costs during night time hours. While no one is apparently actually doing anything like this and it is probably a stretch at this stage in virtualization’s evolution to suggest anyone can successfully accomplish this, it does make for interesting conversation.
- Continuing to optimizing power savings. This is a more realistic application of how companies can continue to save on power even after they virtualize their environment. A new feature that the combination of VMware vSphere, vCenter and vMotion makes possible is the ability to monitor the performance of each vSphere host. If the activity of its hosted VMs drop below a certain level on a number of physical vSphere hosts such that one vSphere host can support all of the VMs on the other hosts, policies can be created so that VMs are vMotioned to one physical vSphere host. Then the other physical hosts can be powered down until there is once again a need for their processing power when they can again be powered on.
So are companies actually going to do all of these things that virtualization in general and VMware specifically can deliver? That is unlikely. But what virtualization does do is make more of this outside of the box thinking possible.This will lead to new innovations and better ways of conducting business and managing enterprise infrastructures. This is the mindset that organizations need to adopt if they hope to realize all of the benefits that virtualization can ultimately deliver so they can remain competitive in the newly virtualized world which is rapidly emerging.