Steve Kovsky

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a live Webcast focusing on The ROI of Virtualization, along with representatives from Intel and IBM. We had a lively discussion on the subject. The webcast is still available as an archive, if you’d like to check it out.

As usual, my favorite part of the event was at the end, where my co-presenters and I finish with our prepared remarks and take questions from the audience. I also had a few questions of my own. One of the most interesting points was regarding new innovations in hardware and software design, and where that will be taking the next generation of virtualization technology. I asked my copresenters – Bob Zuber, Worldwide Product Marketing Manager from IBM, and RK Hiremane, Senior Product Marketing Engineer from Intel “to outline some of those future directions that they see their respective companies pursuing. Here is a short excerpt from that Q&A: Read More »

 

I recently came across a thought-provoking blog post by StorageIO analyst and author Greg Schultz. Ruminating on themes in his new book “The Green and Virtual Data Center,” Schultz laments that the natural link between the concepts of virtualization and data center consolidation has led many to mistakenly conclude that these terms are synonymous. They aren’t. And even though consolidation is one of the leading reasons to virtualize today, it’s not the only good reason to consider the technology.

Furthermore, while the inherent cost and energy savings in consolidation are fueling much of the growth and interest in virtualization today, that won’t always be the case. Does that mean that when the economy rebounds, virtualization will become yesterday’s news? Far from it, argues Schultz. Despite “the perception and industry messaging that incorrectly pigeon holes virtualization to mean consolidation, and consolidation to mean virtualization,” Schultz warns us not to be sucked into the notion that virtualization without consolidation doesn’t have a bright future. “To the contrary, the reality is that there is life beyond consolidation (and) there are even more scenarios and far greater market opportunity for non-consolidation virtualization deployments over time, than what has already been seen for first wave of consolidation-centric virtualization scenarios.” Read More »

In past blogs, I’ve discussed some of the big-picture benefits for server virtualization. This week, I wanted to give some thought to the concept of desktop virtualization. Of the two technologies, the desktop variety has been much slower to take off in the marketplace, and frankly, there are some good reasons for that.

In both cases, the fundamental underlying technology operates on the same basic principle: By uncoupling the operating system and application software layers from the binary code layer that actually operates the chip-level hardware, you can accomplish some cool things. Perhaps the number one benefit is being able to create the illusion of multiple independent physical machines (AKA “virtual” machines) all living side by side on a single hardware platform. These virtual machines can lead diverse and independent lives, being dedicated to various tasks and even running on different operating systems.

The benefits at the server level are almost self evident. For one thing, running multiple virtual machines on a single box can be more efficient, because you can eliminate underutilized machines. As a result, you can reduce hardware costs, eliminate redundancy, and slash you electric bill. Support and maintenance costs can also be reduced, as you consolidate your data center. Read More »

There are two types of green weighing on the minds of business professionals these days: The green that denotes business practices that tread lightly on the environment, and the green that represents money – or lack thereof for capital improvements. The big question is, can you implement the former type of green without spending too much of the latter?

Apparently, you can. At least, so says a recent report written by Barb Goldworm, a virtualization analyst for Focus Consulting and co-author of the 2007 book, “Blade Servers and Virtualization: Transforming Enterprise Computing While Cutting Costs.” In the white paper titled “How to Green Your Data Center from the Server Out,” Goldworm and her co-authors Armando Acosta of Dell and Ed Kurtzer of Intel set out with the premise that the greening of data centers is not only desirable – it’s inevitable.

“Energy costs are going up dramatically. In fact, energy costs are surpassing hardware costs,” according to the report.  An accompanying chart tells the story in graphic detail, showing clearly how energy remained relatively low throughout the 90s and well into the current decade. However, in 2008, energy prices suddenly shot up, quickly crossing over the stable line representing server costs. For the first time, “We are spending more money on power and cooling for the servers than we are for the servers themselves,” the authors state. Read More »

If you listen closely, you can almost hear the sound of belts tightening. The dreary economic forecast has IT departments across the country and around the globe looking for every imaginable way to cut corners and reduce costs without reducing services and support. It’s a tough equation – some would say impossible.

The emphasis on cutting costs is one reason why data center consolidation and virtualization are experiencing a surge of popularity.  An Intel whitepaper posted a few days ago underscores the amount of savings that can be had by using virtualization to optimize just one prominent IT cost center: storage management.

At Intel’s current run rate for racking up the terabytes, the company estimates that its storage requirements would balloon to 90 petabytes of data by 2012, a 450% increase over 2007 levels. By 2014 that could grow to encompass 165 petabytes of data. However, by virtualizing its storage area networks and network attached storage resources, combined with techniques such as fabric unification, storage tiering, thin provisioning and de-duplication, Intel experts reckon they can whittle that number down by a whopping 27 percent over the next five years. Read More »

Could virtualizing your company’s servers actually be part of your patriotic duty? It may seem a little far-fetched at first glance, but let’s take a deeper look at national trends and the important take-aways from recent national political campaigns that drew a bead on our country’s most pressing problems: a teetering economy, our alarming dependence on foreign oil, and a growing need to address environmental concerns such as global warming.

Is there something IT professionals can do that has the potential of addressing this triple threat of social, economic and environmental ills? The answer could be virtualization. Proven technologies that allow a single server to take on a variety of unrelated tasks that would normally require the use of multiple dedicated servers offer some obvious benefits in the areas of cost savings and efficiency. Can those benefits also translate into improved fiscal performance, reduced consumption of energy resources and a lower carbon footprint? The consensus seems to be in the affirmative. Read More »