Virtually Speaking

My what a difference a year makes. The trends on viirtualization have reflected the markets – and not quite 180 degreee changes but drastic revivals are the order of the day. Just take a look at Serverwatch’s 2008 predictions versus the assessment for the year ahead at ZDnet for 2009. Perhaps a stop at Information week’s Virtualization survey will provide some key insights as to what are the key barriers in virtualization deployments:
43% reported Internal political issues
40% cited lack of time or people
35% noted that their Applications are not supported in virtual world
34% cited insufficient virtualization skills
30% noted the high costs as  a barrier
Source: Information Week page 16, December 2008 from EMA Research survey and story
Severwatch has been prophetic on 2 of the driving needs. First, the value-add in virtualization that makes it easier to deploy and manage has certainly turned out to be a major factor in deployments.  Thus  enterprise configuration and management  have proved critical even is modest systems. But as ZDNet points out virtualization is “One of the few surefire techniques to cut floor space and power costs, virtualization will continue to deliver savings, meaning environments will grow from a few hundred VMs to a thousand by the end of the year.” On some simple projects the need for virtualization for security and efficiency were so compelling, the organizations simply had to approach and decide how to use the technology.  But the conundrum is in anenviron of less is more – can virtualization really deliver more of less. The opportunities are there but a lot of the skills  and skilled people are still virtual.