SMARTER STRATEGIES

Closing the Virtualization Management Gap

Joe Maglitta | Date: 09-18-09 | Comments

You'll never get a chance to realize visions of a better computing tomorrow and "private clouds" without smarter administration of virtual servers and data centers.

Virtualization underlies many IT-enabled visions of a greener and more flexible, economical and powerful future, including the emerging darling de jour, private clouds.

Yet as anyone beyond the early �golly!� stages knows, while it�s easy to make virtual machines, it�s a lot harder to manage them. There are no Ops Fairies to magically handle mass provisioning, migration, decommissioning and other grunty, time-consuming but crucial tasks.

Take a look at the chart below from IDC. It shows concisely where we�ve been, where we are and where we�re going with our data centers.

See that widening split on the right, between sales of red (logical servers) and black (physical servers) lines?

Ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is a virtualization management gap.

Michelle Bailey, research vice president for Enterprise Platforms and Datacenter Trends at IDC, laid it out clearly during a session at the Ziff Davis Enterprise Power Management and Green Virtual Trade Show. To view a record session, click here. Her main message:

You�ll never get a chance to realize visions of a better computing tomorrow and �private clouds� without smarter administration of virtual servers and data centers. Virtualization automation and management tools have become �table stakes� for success for enterprise virtualization, modest or grand.

One big reason: IDC forecasts the number of virtual machines per physical server will double between 2007 and 2012.

All the major vendors�IBM, VMware, Microsoft, Novell, HP, Cisco, BMC�have strong offerings, as do smaller upstarts.

Want to help yourself now and position for a wow future? Take a look at your environment and get serious about virtual management and automation tools, Bailey advises.