It has been over 10 years since the first release of VMware Workstation and yet only 20 percent of all servers are running as virtual machines according to industry analysts. That 20 percent figure doesn't seem like a lot of progress to me for a technology that has so much to recommend it. I also know it may be hard to accurately count these things. It reminds me of how difficult it has been to figure out how many Linux servers and Linux desktops are in use because Linux is essentially free-to-use by anyone who wants to run it.
Initially, x86 virtualization was not free when VMware was the only game in town. It didn't take long, however, for the open source Xen project to begin releasing a free alternative to VMware's virtualization that was picked up for inclusion in many Linux distros. And although VMware had built up a technical lead and a virtual monopoly on virtualization, some of VMware's advantages have been eroded in recent years by free-to-use hypervisors. VMware eventually provided free access to VMware Server and gave away VMware Player as they introduced more complex and expensive virtualization management product offerings.
With host-based OS virtualization being easily obtainable and free, attention turned to the hypervisor as the focus of competition. The hypervisor is a “bare metal” bootable manager for virtual machines that comes without the baggage of a complete host OS environment. The Xen project, which created the Xen hypervisor, commercialized itself into XenSource, which was eventually bought by Citrix. Their XenServer hypervisor is free to use and has good enough management tools. You can pay Citrix to get access to the more sophisticated management features for XenServer. Microsoft also released their free, but not open source hypervisor called Hyper-V. You can pay Microsoft for access to their virtualized system management tools. Ditto for VMware which released their ESXi hypervisor for free while charging for their suite of management tools. Today, hypervisors are essentially free-to-use.
With basic virtualization software being free-to-use, including VirtualBox from Oracle, I think there is a whole lot of virtualization going on that doesn't register on anyone's meter. The number of servers virtualized using free host-based OS virtualization software and “bare metal” hypervisors could be much larger than the 20 percent figure suggested by the analysts. But you can be certain that organizations eager to reduce their physical server count in a declining economy will turn to virtualization as way to reduce their IT costs. Those with more foresight already understand the cost-saving efficiencies of virtualization, and are looking to completely divest themselves of servers by moving their virtualized computing workloads into the cloud.
Why would they do this? Isn't on-premises virtualization enough? After all, virtualization solves the problem of underutilized physical servers by running many virtual servers on one physical host. Virtualization reduces physical space requirements for servers as it reduces the use of electricity needed to operate those “one app” physical servers. But virtualization itself doesn't address the need to manage dozens or hundreds of virtual servers in a “cradle-to-grave” manner. Virtual server “sprawl” is what happens when virtualization runs amok. Virtual servers can “multiply like rabbits” if there is no way to manage their creation, use and termination.
To do virtualization workload and life cycle management on premises is expensive and requires IT staff trained to do it. Management tools tend to be vendor specific, which enforces a lock-in to a particular vendor's approach. Some vendors, like Novell, promote an agnostic approach to virtualization workload management and will manage whatever you are doing with most any vendor's virtualization technology.
Learning to manage virtualized workloads is turning out to be a necessity in anything but the simplest situations. And if your are going to manage virtual workloads, you need to be able to do the provisioning, which brings us to cloud computing. Self-provisioning of virtual servers can be done using a public Cloud Service Provider (CSP) like Amazon's EC2 or Google's AppEngine or Microsoft's Azure or Rackspace Cloud. Those not ready yet for public clouds may be inclined to build their own private or hybrid clouds. However, it may be more expensive and challenging to do self-provisioning of virtual servers using a private or hybrid cloud, but self-provisioning is where all of this is headed.
You can build your own private or hybrid cloud using the open source Eucalyptus project, which is API compatible with Amazon's EC2. Eucalyptus is relatively new, so there is the “bleeding edge” factor to consider, but last year Eucalyptus was commercialized so you can expect better management tools to emerge. Canonical's Ubuntu Linux has struck up a working relationship with Eucalyptus to make Ubuntu Server an easier choice for building a private or hybrid cloud. Private or hybrid clouds are probably not in the cards for the SMB market until we see an easy-to-deploy “cloud in a box” that doesn't take a degree in computer science to figure out. The enterprise crowd probably has enough resources in-house to begin re-tooling their virtualized data centers into a private or hybrid cloud centers.
The moral of this virtualization story is while server virtualization is a good thing and should be implemented for all of the aforementioned reasons, it will not be good enough for any but the smallest organizations. When workload and life cycle management and self-provisioning are included, it brings you to the proverbial fork in the road to cloud computing. Do you move your workloads to a public Cloud Service Provider (CSP) or do you build your own private or hybrid cloud on-premises? Right now, I think public clouds are the right fork to take because they have the technology, efficiencies and pricing in their favor. And by taking that fork you may never need to buy a server again.
SET SOAPBOX = OFF
Initially, x86 virtualization was not free when VMware was the only game in town. It didn't take long, however, for the open source Xen project to begin releasing a free alternative to VMware's virtualization that was picked up for inclusion in many Linux distros. And although VMware had built up a technical lead and a virtual monopoly on virtualization, some of VMware's advantages have been eroded in recent years by free-to-use hypervisors. VMware eventually provided free access to VMware Server and gave away VMware Player as they introduced more complex and expensive virtualization management product offerings.
With host-based OS virtualization being easily obtainable and free, attention turned to the hypervisor as the focus of competition. The hypervisor is a “bare metal” bootable manager for virtual machines that comes without the baggage of a complete host OS environment. The Xen project, which created the Xen hypervisor, commercialized itself into XenSource, which was eventually bought by Citrix. Their XenServer hypervisor is free to use and has good enough management tools. You can pay Citrix to get access to the more sophisticated management features for XenServer. Microsoft also released their free, but not open source hypervisor called Hyper-V. You can pay Microsoft for access to their virtualized system management tools. Ditto for VMware which released their ESXi hypervisor for free while charging for their suite of management tools. Today, hypervisors are essentially free-to-use.
With basic virtualization software being free-to-use, including VirtualBox from Oracle, I think there is a whole lot of virtualization going on that doesn't register on anyone's meter. The number of servers virtualized using free host-based OS virtualization software and “bare metal” hypervisors could be much larger than the 20 percent figure suggested by the analysts. But you can be certain that organizations eager to reduce their physical server count in a declining economy will turn to virtualization as way to reduce their IT costs. Those with more foresight already understand the cost-saving efficiencies of virtualization, and are looking to completely divest themselves of servers by moving their virtualized computing workloads into the cloud.
Why would they do this? Isn't on-premises virtualization enough? After all, virtualization solves the problem of underutilized physical servers by running many virtual servers on one physical host. Virtualization reduces physical space requirements for servers as it reduces the use of electricity needed to operate those “one app” physical servers. But virtualization itself doesn't address the need to manage dozens or hundreds of virtual servers in a “cradle-to-grave” manner. Virtual server “sprawl” is what happens when virtualization runs amok. Virtual servers can “multiply like rabbits” if there is no way to manage their creation, use and termination.
To do virtualization workload and life cycle management on premises is expensive and requires IT staff trained to do it. Management tools tend to be vendor specific, which enforces a lock-in to a particular vendor's approach. Some vendors, like Novell, promote an agnostic approach to virtualization workload management and will manage whatever you are doing with most any vendor's virtualization technology.
Learning to manage virtualized workloads is turning out to be a necessity in anything but the simplest situations. And if your are going to manage virtual workloads, you need to be able to do the provisioning, which brings us to cloud computing. Self-provisioning of virtual servers can be done using a public Cloud Service Provider (CSP) like Amazon's EC2 or Google's AppEngine or Microsoft's Azure or Rackspace Cloud. Those not ready yet for public clouds may be inclined to build their own private or hybrid clouds. However, it may be more expensive and challenging to do self-provisioning of virtual servers using a private or hybrid cloud, but self-provisioning is where all of this is headed.
You can build your own private or hybrid cloud using the open source Eucalyptus project, which is API compatible with Amazon's EC2. Eucalyptus is relatively new, so there is the “bleeding edge” factor to consider, but last year Eucalyptus was commercialized so you can expect better management tools to emerge. Canonical's Ubuntu Linux has struck up a working relationship with Eucalyptus to make Ubuntu Server an easier choice for building a private or hybrid cloud. Private or hybrid clouds are probably not in the cards for the SMB market until we see an easy-to-deploy “cloud in a box” that doesn't take a degree in computer science to figure out. The enterprise crowd probably has enough resources in-house to begin re-tooling their virtualized data centers into a private or hybrid cloud centers.
The moral of this virtualization story is while server virtualization is a good thing and should be implemented for all of the aforementioned reasons, it will not be good enough for any but the smallest organizations. When workload and life cycle management and self-provisioning are included, it brings you to the proverbial fork in the road to cloud computing. Do you move your workloads to a public Cloud Service Provider (CSP) or do you build your own private or hybrid cloud on-premises? Right now, I think public clouds are the right fork to take because they have the technology, efficiencies and pricing in their favor. And by taking that fork you may never need to buy a server again.
SET SOAPBOX = OFF
Abundance is a life style, a way of living your life. It isn’t something you buy now and then or pull down from the cupboard, dust off and use once or twice, and then return to the cupboard.
Posted by: coach purses | July 07, 2010 at 04:12 AM