VMware in the Wild

Will virtualization catch on in the Mojave desert? How about in the North Dakota plains? I have no information whatsoever on these questions but virtualization is alive and well in the wilds of New Hampshire where VMware’s New England user group  recently held a meeting. Why New Hampshire? I’m not sure but many of the attendees I met from Maine and New Hampshire were happy about the logistics.

In any event, I was able to spend the day there and found it time well spent. After lunch, Mark Bowker, an analyst with the ESG, gave an excellent presentation on the state of the virtualization market. Mark’s got one of the best presentation styles I’ve seen, very capable in terms of engaging the audience and not shying away from the “tough” virtualization questions like what happens to IT head count when a data center gets virtualized. (What happens in at least one case that was mentioned was a 70% staff reduction!)

Bowker asked the audience of approximately 100 attendees how many had attained the somewhat rare condition of being 100% virtualized. About 3 people raised their hands. I’ll do some more blogging on this event and the presentation but another key point he made had to do with something we’ve discussed before: that many shops are going down the “virtualize first then optimize” path as he put it. But once they’ve done the sweet spot virtualization, the real work often begins in terms of taking on the challenge of scaling storage and reconfiguring backup capability.

Posted by Tom Valovic on 11/09/2008 at 12:49 PM