Views from Around the World

Over the last month, I’ve spent a lot of time with prospects, customers and partners talking about virtualization. This is no surprise because “The Big V” is so resonant now. What’s interesting is the scope of the conversations.

Here’s what I mean. I spoke on Virtualization in three different BrainShare sessions. While each approach came along a different vector, at some point there was consistency in the dialogue. Last week I spoke at IDC Canada’s Green IT Conference and I specifically discussed how virtualization could help organizations facilitate the Green Data Center. In the conversation the same consistency was reached.Many analysts have been saying that Virtualization is not the end, only a means, and could create new risk. I asked one of my best friends, the CTO for major broadcaster whether he believed that physical servers were easier or harder to manage than virtual ones. His comment was the same as every other answer I’ve received to my question. To a person the answer is that physical is easier to manage because the tools exist and worst case you can “see” the server. For virtualization to move to the next level, this view needs to be able to change.

So what’s my point? We are in a truly unique position in the marketplace. We have an amazing policy based VM management framework in ZENworks Orchestrator with VM Manager. What sets us clearly apart is the addition to the Novell family of the people and solutions from Platespin. In every conversation, at some juncture, the recognition came up that understanding the nature of the workloads over time was one of the most important elements in defining what should or could be virtualized. Platespin’s PowerRecon allows customers and partners to do this in the most elegant and effective manner I have seen. PowerRecon also allows organizations to monitor utilization and allocate expenses according to the customer’s business model. Once the workload life-cycle is understood, PowerConvert makes the transition of workloads from physical to virtual, virtual to virtual, physical to physical or even virtual to physical simple and automated. Together, the Orchestrator policy engine and intelligence coupled with the planning capability of PowerRecon and PowerConvert’s automation brings a solution set to the market that customers already recognize as needed and business critical.

I fundamentally believe that this next generation of virtualization is ours to lead. I hope you believe that too. Until next time.

Ross