I know there are still people out there who object the industry’s virtualization efforts. One reason is the fear, that the new abstraction level to which virtualization always and necessarily leads, brings restraints in terms of handling. These people, I have to admit, are not that wrong to warn against virtualization islands and new obstacles through fragmentation in system management.
Tom Bittmann, Gartner Analyst, put it in a nutshell, when he said that “virtualization without good management is more dangerous than not using virtualization in the first place.”
And management doesn’t mean managing this or that singular virtualization tool. Sustainable management efforts nowadays have to follow an holistic approach at process level. Especially in the matter of virtualization. Otherwise you will loose the benefits of virtualization and the dynamic allocation of resources the moment, when you have to manually manage this. This is the crux of virtualization: you need a tool which automates the management-tasks beyond system and platform borders. Even beyond virtualization borders – offering one management view for virtual AND real sectors of your IT environment.
Considering this, virtualization without virtualization automation is kind of awkward. It’s a bit like believing that you can dynamically manage workloads on a manual basis. Concerning this virtualization tale, the doubters are right.
Wolfgang Tonninger
Ralf Paschen
Christian Plaichner
Paul Rosien
Michelle Parkinson
nachoes….
Virtualization itself cannot be implemented as a technology without having people and processes in place, which are key part of the automation. Without having automation in place, you would still have to manually manage and monitor your infrastructure. This defeats the purpose of having virtualization in the first place.
People/companies object to virtualization because they fear the complexity of it. Companies have failed in implementing virtualization because they implemented it without understanding its complex nature.
totally agree: managing virtualization presupposes that people and processes are in place!
[...] 2010 will possibly be the year when the hyping technologies around virtualization will hit the front-end – where the user is waiting. This can also cause trouble – without transparent process management. Because “virtualization without good management is more dangerous than not using virtualization in the first place” – as Tom Bittmann, Gartner Analyst, already put it in a nutshell a year ago. [...]
[...] 2010 will possibly be the year when the hyping technologies around virtualization will hit the front-end – where the user is waiting. This can also cause trouble – especially without transparent process management. Because “virtualization without good management is more dangerous than not using virtualization in the first place” – as Tom Bittmann, Gartner Analyst, already put it in a nutshell a year ago. [...]