Sep 24

Written by: admin
9/24/2008 6:42 PM

Unless you are hiding under a rock you have probably heard about "virtualization" recently.  Let me say that if you haven't, it is a safe bet that your boss or owner has and if you are in charge of IT decisions they will be asking you about it soon.

I attended a seminar today and the presenter was the most knowledgeable, unbiased speaker I have heard.  His company sell VMware (big in the virtualization arena), but also has many ties to Microsoft and recently visited the Redmund campus to see what was going on with Windows Server 2008.  Here is a quick recap of what I learned:

• Most people thing that virtualization is taking two or more servers and running them on one physical box.  Yes, that is server virtualization, but that this only scratching the surface.  There is desktop virtualization, application virtualization, presentation virtualization, etc. 
• VMware is the big player here, but Microsoft is making some bold moves with Hyper-V™.  Bottom line according to the speaker, Hyper-V™ will cost about 40% less than VMware, but it will pay a slight performance price.  Being Microsoft, it will not play as nicely with others as VMware does either.  But hey, we are jewelry retailers and we like our It cheap, so waiting for Hyper-V to mature makes a lot of sense.
• Don't plan on saving a lot of $$$ upfront on virtualization.  The savings comes from lower IT management costs,  and reduced power consumption.    

Yes - it is "green" and that alone will be enought to propel this technology forward over the next 5-10 years.  Virtualization is here and it is the future of IT... and, done right, it will a very good thing for us all.

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