2009: virtualization crossover year

I recently attended the IDC Virtualization Forum in NYC (BTW, I work for IDG and IDC is part of the same parent company). This was a business to business focussed event on what has become one of the few positive business trends in 2009. Here's my topline.

According to Matthew Eastwood, Group Vice President of Enterprise Platform Research, 2009 is a big year for virtualization. If current trends hold, this year will mark a big crossover with more virtual servers than physical servers worldwide at year's end. My comment: I agree, virtualization has quickly moved out from being a cool techie product to a substantial part of the enterprise technology structure. 

The business case for virtualization is straigtforward in the server segment. The increased use of server virtualization allows you to reduce the physical IT footprint and creates direct, measurable savings in the server room. A good chunk of those savings are returned to the business group.

The next big hurdle for virtualization is to bring down the cost and complexity of managing virtual servers. The ability to easily create virtual instances can quickly lead to server sprawl. Administration and management is not as much a technology trick as a procedures and process undertaking. IDC Research Director Mary Johnston Turner seems to have a good handle on this topic.

Storage virtualizaiton may be the furthest along in terms of virtualization in the cloud beyond the confines of a particular enterprise location. 

Desktop virtualization may be the neatest technology virtualization product available to consumers, is not quite ready for business primetime. Running the OS on your desktop or using other terminal emulation software are strong, cost effective alternatives to making the jump right now to a swarm of virtualized desktops.

Vendors are still dragging their feet on licenses, software policies and learning how to play nicely with competitors in the virtualized world. A presentation by Arthur Fleiss, IT Architect for Colgate-Palmolive Company helped me realize the users are leading the parade on virtualization with the vendors sometimes reluctant participants.