Virtualisation: Virtual Hype?
Virtualisation: Virtual Hype?
November/December Edition, 2007: Getting caught up in hype can be wonderful. It gets the blood pumping and the adrenaline flowing, you feel like you’re a part of something because you’re in the know and doing something about it.
For these reasons it’s also very dangerous because it’s ruled by the emotional pleasure of being a part of the action. In the technology world, virtualisation provides the perfect example of hype around the introduction of new solutions, one which saw a large number of organisations get hyped up and jump on board as soon as it became the thing to do.
IT management company, Computer Associates (CA) has released an independent global study on virtualisation showing 51% of CIO’s believe their virtualisation solution has failed to achieve a return on investment. This is a much larger than expected result, but one which makes sense when you consider how many companies bought into the technology when it was still young and untested. The study was conducted by Strategic Research and surveyed 969 organisations, including 55 from Australia and New Zealand.
“A lot of CIO’s got into virtualisation with a lack of understanding as to where the benefits were, that’s probably not the case anymore, the market is becoming better educated on the benefits of virtualization,” says Steven Whichelo, technology specialist, enterprise systems management at CA.
This isn’t to say virtualisation is all doom and gloom but rather when a technology is brand new the analyst and media communities can whip up a frenzy of hype catching end-users in the process. Such seems to have been the case with virtualisation which has now matured to the point that it’s extremely successful and even the most stalwart technology resistors are starting to get on board.
According to Whichelo, the last six months has seen a massive increase in virtualisation take up, but there is an understanding now of the need for a virtualisation strategy. This has come about from most organisations realising that not every machine is a target for virtualisation, something much more common during the original take-up of the technology.
Where is the ROI?
In order to find the Return On Investment (ROI) for virtualisation organisations need to quantify what they’re looking to achieve from it. Whichelo explains how this has changed since the initial hype cycle as different end-users are increasingly trying to achieve different things. Some organisations are looking to target the power and floor capacity savings, while others are looking to consolidate hardware.
“The failure with virtualisation wasn’t the technology, it was the lack of planning. People are beginning to understand that now,” says Whinchelo. “Finally that message has made its way through to the market and we will start to see companies achiever greater ROI then ever before.”
Prominent virtualisation provider, VMware has raised its doubts about the CA report. “It does not indicate what virtualisation technology these companies have been using as not all virtualisation technologies are the same,” says Andre Kemp, product marketing manager, VMware Asia Pacific.
“The level of deployments will also see significant benefits change pending the organisations requirement. For example, virtualising in a test or pilot application may limit the total ROI benefits a customer may experience. Other factors to take into consideration are power savings which, according to IDC, some data centres can consume 50% of the organisations electricity bill,” says Kemp.
VMware also does not consider the so-called hype cycle of virtualisation solutions as bad as it may have seemed. “I don’t think it was the latest mobile phone kind of thing, the technology serviced a specific need which still services a specific need such as low utilisation of servers and the physical needs of power and cooling,” says Kemp.
Here comes Microsoft?
While VMware has enjoyed success to the point that it’s associated with virtualisation like Ipods are with mp3 players, there could well be a sleeping giant about to wake up with Microsoft preparing to launch a virtualisation solution in it Server 2008 offering.
Microsoft Server 2008 is on track for its January 08 release which has already been rolled out in test cases all over the globe. This doesn’t seem to worry VMware though, as the technology is as yet unproven and Kemp believes, “it’s good we have competitors in the marketplace, but what you need to understand is that we aren’t dealing with the same thing here. What’s coming out from that entity is basically ESX 1.0, it validates that virtualisation is the right thing, but what customers want proven management capabilities.”
When you consider Microsoft’s success in penetrating new market, it’s no surprise there has been an intense amount of speculation as to what will occur next January. Whether or not they become a serious competitor to VMware remains to be seen, as will the further hype it may or may not generate.