Computer World Canada Magazine - September 28, 2007

in small to mid-sized enterprise (SME) virtual machine adoption and looks at how virtualization adoption will continue to grow in 2007. Discussion includes:

• How “virtualization” has
come to mean x86/x64
processor virtualization.
• The current adoption of
virtualization and how it
is being used by SMEs.
• Longer-term potential for
virtualization for IT/busi-
ness alignment.
• Info-Tech predictions on
the near-term future of
the x86/x64 virtualiza-
tion market.

Trend point Processor virtualization has rapidly gained a foothold among SMEs as these enterprises seek to cost-effectively manage server infrastructure consolidation and growth. The likelihood of virtualization in the enterprise increases with infrastructure size and complexity. However, the infrastructure impact of x86/x64 processor virtualization is greater for small to mid-sized enterprises than it is for large enterprises.

The most immediate practical benefit of virtualization can be found in the savings achieved on server hardware purchases through greater and more efficient utilization

processor capability. The application testing and development realm is an especially strong candidate for virtualization, although an increasing number of enterprises are using virtualization in a production environment. Among surveyed enterprises, ranging from 250 to 5,000 employees, 22 per cent say they are using virtualization in production environments and a further 13 per cent say they plan to use it in a production environment within a year.

Virtualization adoption is much higher among IT departments that focus on innovation for strategic advantage than for those that focus solely on cost control. Info-Tech sees virtualization as a critical

Processor
virtualization is
the sharing of one
physical processor
among more than one
running operating system
and software stack.

component of building flexible and responsive utility IT infrastructures. In a utility type of IT infrastructure, virtualization is used to create abstract processing and storage from the underlying hardware, and is allocated to specific applications as required. This flexible and dynamic

MULTIPLY MOBILE SECURITY
AND MAXIMIZE CONFIDENCE.

Some of the operating systems that support multi-core processors include:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003

• Sun Solaris 10 OS

• HP-UX 11i

• OpenVMS

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux4

structure improves IT agility by allowing for the quick provisioning of resources to business initiatives when and where needed.

Moving forward, enterprises seeking to gain continued benefit from virtualization will need to focus on the management layer. Virtual machines are becoming a commodity item, an out-of-box feature of server hardware. Maximum value will be gained not from deploying virtual machines but from efficiently managing the virtual infrastructure.

Situation analysis Processor virtualization is the sharing of one physical processor (or cluster of physical processors) among more than one running operating system and software stack. Each operating system runs as if it is on its own dedicated processor(s) — one real machine running multiple “virtual machines.” It is not a new concept. In managing mainframe computers, for example, it

has long been possible to divide processing, memory, and storage among multiple logical partitions, or LPARs. IBM first introduced logical partitioning in 1976.

Currently, however, the term “virtualization” is most often associated with the running of virtual machines on x86/x64 processors. Even more specifically, it typically refers to using VMWare to run virtual machines on x86/x64 servers. This is a relatively new development as the x86 has normally supported a single operating system (such as Windows or Linux). Traditional distributed processing infrastructures normally add a new x86 box for each new user (PC) or workgroup/enter-prise application (server).