Virtualisation Drives Automation Steers
Virtualisation Drives, Automation Steers
May 9, 2007: Gartner analysts have declared virtualisation the most significant technology for IT infrastructures but say it’s automation that will be the ‘next big thing,’ as organisations seek to tackle the virtualisation sprawl.’
Gartner analyst Thomas Bittman has made his thoughts known on the uptake of virtualisation at the Gartner Infrastructure, Operations and Data Centre Summit in Sydney.
“Several things will make virtualisation critical to most enterprise in the next few years,” said Bittman. “The need to consolidate space, power, installation and integration, and providing server resources which are capable of responding to unpredictable workloads.”
Unfortunately for the server market, it’s not all good news with every virtual server taking at least one physical server off the market. “Today more than 90 percent of users deploying virtual machines are doing so specifically to reduce x86 server, space and energy costs,” says Bittman. “We believe virtualisation reduced the x86 server market by 4 percent in 2006, and by 2009 it will have a far greater impact.
But on the upside, the market looks good for business automation, especially once organisations realise the impact of growing gap between well managed and badly managed IT infrastructure.
According to Bittman, a lack of good management around virtualisation is more dangerous than not using virtualisation in the first pace. “Automation is the critical next step to help organisations stop ‘virtualisation sprawl’, which is not much better than server sprawl.”
With virtualisation set to have an even greater impact on servers and PCs in the lead up to 2010, Bittman believe process change and cultural change in organisations is still required.
“Virtualisation enables alternative delivery models for services,” he says. “Each virtualised layer can be managed relatively independently or even owned by someone else, for example, streamed applications or employee-owned PCs. This can require major cultural changes for organisations.”