Virtualization Foo

I guess the industry used the weekend to finalize a bunch of press releases around virtualization.  Two examples that came across the transom today:

From DoubleTake

Survey finds 38% of Organisations have already Gone Virtual

Results reveal flexibility, cost and availability are key motivating factors for adopting virtualised infrastructures

Worcester, UK. – 2nd September 2008 – Double-Take Software (NASDAQ: DBTK) today announced the results of a survey that it ran in collaboration with the organisers of Storage Expo 2008, the UK’s definitive event for data storage, information and content management, which takes place in London on 15th and 16th October. Key findings include overwhelming interest in virtualisation, with 38% of respondents having already virtualised their production infrastructure and 52% having plans to do so. Increased infrastructure flexibility was cited as the main benefit of adopting virtualisation (48%), followed by cost reduction (21%). However, beyond these core factors, improved disaster recovery is widely considered a key additional benefit of virtualisation, with 82% stating that it is a significant feature.

“Natalie Booth, event manager for Storage Expo 2008, commented, “Virtualisation has seen dramatic adoption rates in recent years. From our discussions with CIOs and analysts we expect this trend to accelerate. (emphasis added) We have included a series of seminars on virtualisation in the education programme of Storage Expo 2008 to help organisations explore its benefits. In the keynote on Improving Asset Utilisation with Virtualisation, John Abbott, Chief Analyst from The 451 Group will lead a panel of speakers from OxfordUniversity, Wellcome Trust; British Horse Racing Authority and Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation trust. Other virtualisation presentations include ‘Storage Virtualisation, does it meet today’s business needs?’ and ‘How to help you reduce spend by 50% on Storage for Virtualised Servers.”

IanMasters, UK sales and marketing director at Double-Take Software, said, “We could have predicted that reduced costs would appear as a major factor in the adoption of virtualised infrastructures. However, the high interest expressed in the flexibility of virtualised infrastructures was less predictable and is very significant. It demonstrates that organisations are unhappy with the constraints native to traditional physical infrastructures and are actively seeking ways that can make the management of their infrastructure more fluid and open to innovation.”

“Although, 82% of respondents believe that improved disaster recovery is a key additional benefit (emphasis added) of virtualisation, Double-Take Software maintains that it is not an automatic by-product. All instances of virtualised systems rely on the physical hardware on which shared data is stored. If physical systems are not adequately protected and fail, then virtualised systems will also fail. Data replication technology from Double-Take Software ensures that any virtualised infrastructure, or mixed environment, is comprehensively protected and also provides organisations with further flexibility, allowing them to dynamically manage their virtualised infrastructure.”

Double-Take business continuity deployment allows businesses to move IT systems anytime, anywhere, for whatever purpose, without interfering with ongoing operations. Double-Take copies data in real time from one server, or one site, to another to create a complete duplicate on a live backup system to provide very high levels of data protection and availability. Combining Double-Take with virtualisation provides the ability to protect and dynamically manage the entire infrastructure. Whether recovering from a disaster, simplifying routine server maintenance or migrating whole data centres, Double-Take creates a dynamic infrastructure that ensures effective business continuity planning as well as allowing data centre managers to innovate in how they manage their entire infrastructure.

The survey polled 59 UK IT and business professionals (emphasis added) with an interest in storage issues from across industry sectors and was conducted by Storage Expo, which takes place at Olympia, London, 15 & 16th October, www.storage-expo.com.

And from HP:

Today HP released research results on virtualization that I thought may be of interest. (News release available at: www.hp.com/go/virtualization2008) At the heart of the findings: while 86% of the responding senior technology decision makers have already implemented virtualization, only 1/3 identify virtualization as a business tool. (emphasis added)

HP is encouraging CIOs to rethink virtualization in business terms in order to gain maximum value from dollars spent on virtualization. Digging deeper into the research findings reinforces the idea that virtualization is undervalued as a means of achieving business outcomes.

A majority of those surveyed say the top business technology priorities that they have been tasked with by their CEOs revolve around lowering costs, improving performance, maintaining stability and ensuring security – all of which are benefits of virtualization, (emphasis added) as acknowledged by survey respondents.

Speaking directly to the issue of lowering costs:
• 50% of virtualization implementers said their decision to adopt was cost related including lowest total cost of ownership and reduced operational costs, while 80% say they are “very confident” virtualization will deliver reduced costs.
• As one US CIO explained, “[T]he CFO or CEO… simply say they want to save money on the infrastructure, so the top priority for them is to save money and reduce our infrastructure footprint, which from my view is translated into virtualization.”

When it comes to virtualization’s role in improving performance, many respondents saw this as an aspect of increased efficiency:
• 70% of technology decision-makers say they are “very confident” virtualization will deliver increased efficiency.
• A CIO in Mexico pointed to how virtualization helps his team “control quickly the variables to have information when needed; we can be checking…at the start of the shift, at the beginning of the day, to know what action to take at time being and start correcting it.”
• In France, one CIO praised virtualization for delivering “greater performance, higher data throughput [and] faster connectivity.”
• A CIO from the US admitted that “the quickness of being able to implement a server and application based on what the business need at the time is could be a benefit.”
• A CIO from France explained that “by reducing costs whilst at the same time increasing performance, a clear advantage develops for the company.”

Addressing questions of both stability and security:
• 65% respondents associate virtualization with risk mitigation.
• A technology decision-maker in France said, “Server consolidation by means of virtualization provides an excellent solution as it is easy to administer and generates lower IT operating costs. At the same time, your IT systems are better used and provide high availability.”
• A Chinese CIO, while explaining his view of virtualization as a technology tool, made the case for virtualization as a business tool when he said, “What comes into my thoughts first is the running of the most important servers, which would be the biggest impact. Virtualization ensures smoother running of the system so it lowers the risk of failures and problems.”

Senior technology decision-makers indicate that while virtualization delivers a wide range of financial and operational benefits those benefits are often linked to the technology department’s performance within the company rather than company-wide business results.

There is an opportunity for technology departments around the world to strengthen their understanding of how what they see as IT benefits can have company-wide impact and subsequently achieve greater business value through use of virtualization.

To read the full research study, go to www.hp.com/go/virtualizationresearch08. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Hmmm.  I will look into the HP study and see if they interviewed more than 59 decision-makers.  [They talked to 150, according to their research.] But, still, doesn’t this fly in the face of the Wall Street Journal study on virtual server sprawl and on the many other articles we have started to see that are getting more critical of x86 server virtualization and its undelivered promises? 

For what it’s worth, I think the HP survey respondents who didn’t necessarily see x86 virtualization as a business tool might have been correct.  I enjoyed all of the rain from Gustav this weekend secure in the knowledge that the hype curve around virtualization was ending and that we were entering the much awaited trough of disillusionment with respect to the technology.

Tagged as: DoubleTake, HP, server virtualization, x86 extents