Market researcher IDC has an event they’ve held for three years running called the IDC IT Forum & Expo. This year’s event was held at the Westin Waterfront in Boston. I was an IDC analyst prior to joining Virtualization Review, so while attending a few sessions, I had a chance to chat with many former colleagues of mine in the Enterprise Computing Group headed up by Vernon Turner. (Fun fact about Vernon, by the way: he likes to bungee jump in his spare time and has a penchant for showing live footage of his experiences during team meetings.)
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Posted by Tom Valovic on 06/05/20082 comments
So what's the deal with VMware’s
snapping up of B-hive
? Its core product is a virtual appliance already partner-integrated with VMware's management tools. The integrated solution can reallocate VMs on the fly and create additional ones if needed. From a 50,000 foot perspective, this move fits nicely into the company's vision of automated virtual data centers.
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Posted by Tom Valovic on 06/03/20080 comments
Every once in a while I like to post interesting or especially insightful comments from readers. Here's a response from Bert on "
Analyze This: The Flavors of Virtualization
":
A decent taxonomy will benefit the whole industry! On the desktop virtualization definition, I would suggest to further subdivide into the two flavors "client-side" (VMware ACE, VirtualBox, etc) and "server-side" (essentially all VDI flavors), as these are typically mixed up sometimes. Also, IDC made a taxonomy of what they call "Virtualized Client Computing" (click here for a graphical overview and link).
Brian Madden recently made a flowchart comparing the Server Based Computer paradigm to desktop virtualization, which is an area I find is also confusing a lot of clients.
Finally, I also like Manlio Vecchiet's definition (Microsoft) for Virtual Desktop Architecture: "the storage and execution of a desktop workload (OS, apps, data) on a virtual machine in the datacenter and the presentation of the UI via a remote desktop protocol (such as RDP) to user devices such as thin and rich clients." This is what I would call "server-hosted" desktop virtualization, and his definition encompasses both the Server Based Computing model (i.e. Terminal Services) as well as Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI).
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Posted by Tom Valovic on 05/30/20080 comments
In my last blog I talked about the connection between what some Tier 1 telecom carriers were doing in the digital home and the emerging market for hosted desktop virtualization. I also suggested that – in theory -- some of them might eventually offer some sort of “quintuple play” consisting of wireline and wireless phone service, Internet access, IPTV and hosted desktop as a service.
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Posted by Tom Valovic on 05/27/20080 comments
On HP’s Radar?
Shane Robison, HP’s chief technology and strategy officer, was recently interview by
Newsweek
on his thoughts about the company’s overall technology direction. While there was mention of HP’s efforts in data center automation and IT outsourcing, the subject of virtualization didn’t come up -- even in the context of a discussion about green IT. Curious…..
A Few Data Points on Virtualization Planning. Cirba’s Co-founder and CTO Andrew Hillier recently stopped by our offices to discuss the company’s latest product announcement, Version 5.0 of its planning analysis software, dubbed DCI. I asked him whether large enterprise customers were doing the planning for virtualization themselves or hiring systems integrators or consultants to do it. His view is that there’s not one dominant trend and approaches depend on which vertical segment you’re talking about. Another interesting data point had to do with Microsoft’s future direction in developing management tools under the System Center VMM banner. He agreed with our view that Microsoft’s features and functionality would have a strong appeal to the SMB market given certain aspects of price/performance.
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Posted by Tom Valovic on 05/24/20080 comments
Like riddles? Here’s one. What’s the connection between virtualization, Firedog, Verizon, and Nicholas Carr? In this and the next few blogs, I’m going to float a bit of a thought experiment and I hope you’ll find the outcome interesting. The terrain to be explored: the connection between telecom and virtualization.
Virtualization is usually thought of strictly in an IT context and even network virtualization falls into that category. But virtualization also has many linkages to the world of telecom even though some of them are still formative.
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Posted by Tom Valovic on 05/22/20080 comments
Most of us involved with virtualization agree that it’s the hottest trend in IT right now. But we have to be careful not to get too carried away. So here’s my list of a few reality checks to keep in mind:
1. Virtualization does not serve as an adequate substitute for a cup of Starbucks Komodo Dragon blend on a rainy Monday morning.
2. Virtualization will not win the election this fall.
3. Virtualization is not a guarantee of future performance and involves risks and uncertainties which are often difficult to predict. This means that actual future results may differ from what has been forecasted or projected in forward-looking statements.
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Posted by Tom Valovic on 05/19/20084 comments
There are surveys and there are surveys. One conducted recently by Symantec was hardly what you would call scientific because of the sample size just wasn’t large enough (a catch and grab at a trade show.) But it did shed some light on the current thinking of IT managers on some of the trials and tribulations that might be expected in implementing storage virtualization.
The survey targeted IT storage managers, system administrators, managers, and C-level. Some of the findings: both storage management and backup/recovery were the top challenges in VMware environments with nearly a third of respondents indicating that their data protection software for virtual environments is lacking.
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Posted by Tom Valovic on 05/15/20080 comments
"I wanna say things that nobody really understands." -- Pete Townsend,
Coolwalking
After being an analyst for many years I began to notice an interesting phenomenon. Sometimes I couldn't switch being an analyst off. Problem with the car? Let's generate a quick logic tree diagram and fix that puppy. Can't get the top off the pickle jar? No problem, we'll just quickly jot down a three dimensional matrix, triangulate all the variables, and have lunch...
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Posted by Tom Valovic on 05/08/20080 comments
If virtualization were a state, Stanford University would be its capital. That's where Diane Greene, Mendel Rosenblum, and others worked on the technology that would eventually lead to the founding of VMware in 1998, allowing virtualization to cross the chasm into potential widespread adoption.
Now another brain trust spun off from Stanford is off and running with a startup called MokaFive that's going after desktop virtualization in a unique way. The company has some formidable competition including the big three (i.e. Microsoft, Citrix, and VMware) and the thin client providers. It has also targeted the desktop as a service (DaaS) market that other startups such as Desktone are going after with a vengeance.
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Posted by Tom Valovic on 05/05/20080 comments
How are federal government IT managers viewing virtualization? To find out
Science Logic
asked more than100 federal agency IT managers, systems administrators and network engineers at the
FOSE
conference to spill the beans. ScienceLogic is an IT management solutions company which offers a product called the EM7 Meta-Appliance, a centralized data and reporting repository. XM Satellite Radio is one of their customers.
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Posted by Tom Valovic on 04/29/20080 comments
OK, I admit it. I'm intrigued by the names of companies. Take xkoto for example, a company that Virtualization Review recently spoke with (See Keith's recent
blog
on this). Obligingly, the company's Website actually tells you how the name was created: "xkoto is a transliteration of two Greek words which taken together convey the idea of "out of darkness, out of chaos". I just want to go on the record here by saying that I heartily endorse the idea of moving out of chaos...
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Posted by Tom Valovic on 04/29/20080 comments