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Market Roundup June 9, 2006 Virtualization for the Real World of Business Tallying the Value of Virtualization: Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager |
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Virtualization for the Real World of Business
This week VMware announced the release of VMware Virtual
Infrastructure 3, a suite of virtualization and virtual machine management
tools consisting of several discrete elements, some of which represent the
latest versions of existing tools along with a number of new elements. At the heart of VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 can be found VMware
ESX Server. This is the virtualization layer technology that allows
organizations to abstract physical server resources (such as processor, memory,
storage, and networking elements) and presents them as one or more virtual
machines. The new release also includes VMware Virtual Machine File System
(VMFS), a high-performance cluster file system that provides pools of VMware
ESX servers simultaneous access to storage and VMware
Virtual SMP, software that allows a single virtual machine to use multiple
physical processors at the same time. Increasingly sophisticated management
capabilities are supplied by VMware VirtualCenter. The final components of the
release announcement include VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS),
VMware VMotion software that delivers virtual machine migration facility
without service interruption, VMware High Availability (HA), and, finally,
VMware Consolidated Backup. VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 will be supplied in
three packages named VMware Enterprise, Standard, and Starter and each includes
a mix of the individual components described above but all packages include
basic management capabilities.
There is no doubt of the business needs driving the adoption
of virtual machine solutions. Physical hardware performance capabilities in the
Intel/AMD server space grow almost exponentially leaving the traditional
single-server, single-application IT delivery model lacking in flexibility and
the ability to effectively utilize resources. At the same time management costs
escalate. The time is now right for the wide-spread adoption of virtual machine
systems to support a wide range of mainstream business applications. VMware is
well established in the IT departments of many organizations and VMware Virtual
Infrastructure 3 now delivers packages that are ready to support live business-critical
systems. While each of the components are technically sound, it is the provision
of sophisticated management tools that add considerable weight to the real-world
use of the VMware portfolio. In particular, the automation capabilities coupled
with high availability and sophisticated backup/protection tools could take
VMware in mainstream usage very rapidly. Indeed VMware is complementing its own
developing stack with the creation of a virtual infrastructure architecture
that is divided into the three areas: the core VMware Virtual machine
container, VMware Infrastructure Services, and VMware Infrastructure Virtualization.
Together these allow the creation of good multi-node virtualization and
management. In this way one can synthesise a virtual computer with almost any
desired “physical” attributes from a pool of centrally managed resources,
thereby allowing service management in terms not of individual resources but
linked more closely with quality of service attributes. It should not be
forgotten that VMware also has good virtualization and management capabilities
for desktop systems. This is an area ripe for growth as is that of Virtual
Machine Appliances.
VMware is actively promoting the creation of open standards for virtual machines and has made many of its APIs widely available to partners as it actively seeks to expand its ecosystem of partners that work to build business solutions. VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 is ready to support many business-critical initiatives in organizations of all sizes, not just for large enterprises. VMware has established a near-dominant position in its existing market space. The challenge now is to expand its adoption in business critical systems and to attract the mid-market. Over the next year or two it plans to continue to develop its offerings and expand its partner community as it readies itself for the expected launch of competitive systems, most notably those from Microsoft. It is well positioned so to do.
Tallying the Value of Virtualization: Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager
IBM has announced its Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager
that targets customers seeking to track the usage of their virtualized IT
infrastructure. The software provides a simple billing mechanism to charge
internal departments or individual clients for the computing services they
consume. IBM Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager, which incorporates technology
from the January acquisition of CIMS Lab, has a Web-based interface that meters
and bills technology use to enable customers to measure their virtual server,
storage, network, software, middleware, and email usage by organization,
department, or even individual. This latest offering is designed to simplify
how IT outsourcing companies track virtualized data centers and accurately bill
each of their clients to eliminate the need for discrete server deployment for
each customer in order to meet service level agreements. The software also
helps individual companies who manage their own virtualized IT by providing a
simple way to bill internal departments that use shared computing resources as
well as aiding in the planning of future upgrades, consolidations, and
purchases of new technology. The IBM Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager is now
available through IBM or IBM Business Partners for IBM x86 servers and the
System z mainframe and will be available for System p later this year. Pricing
begins at $599 per server for the System x and $75,000 for System z mainframe
customers in the United States.
Virtualization is a hot topic with the commensurate level of
market activity evidenced as each vendor seeks to define itself as a leading
proponent and provider of virtualization whether it be for servers, storage, or
stroganoff. Technical differentiation and variation amongst vendors abounds, but
the simple notion of virtualization as a mechanism to help improve productivity
and bring IT costs under control is very appealing, and rightfully so. Despite
the flurry of activity around virtualization and CIO’s penchant to demand
improved cost effectiveness in IT operations, most virtualization schemes talk
about cost savings, but have lacked the ability to demonstrate and recoup cost
savings in a multi-departmental environment. Sure, the consolidated
infrastructure is less expensive to install and there are fewer cables lying
around, but demonstrating the ongoing per capita cost savings of virtualization
has been a more of a philosophical than an accounting-based discussion, at
least until now.
With IBM’s newest Tivoli software, the true shared costs of virtualized resources can be empirically demonstrated at the smallest or largest server, and in many cases may make the argument in favor of virtualization even stronger within organizations. When confronted with the cost delta of discrete vs. shared resources (with the requisite SLAs) LOB professionals would be able to see that it is in their interest as well as that of the organization as a whole to migrate operations to a shared environment except for a valid operational reason to not do so. Aligning the cost of IT with the business processes it supports is an essential undertaking for any organization, and virtualization can play a significant part in this. However, without the ability to accurately gauge cost-effectiveness, virtualization could become viewed as another IT spending binge/excuse brought forth by IT with the requisite skepticism and backlash from LOB and management. This would be unfortunate. Overall, we are pleased to see IBM offer a very reasonably priced tool to help organizations of most any stripe measure their IT efficiency improvements garnered through virtualization and also educate all as to the cost of and benefit derived from their use of IT.
Google recently announced a new application, appropriately
named Google Spreadsheet. It is accessible by invitation while being in limited
test mode. The application is available online, and keeps users’ spreadsheet
data in an online site. Since it is a beta version, there are still some bugs
to work out, such as the fact that it does not handle graphs or macros, nor
does it allow only part of a spreadsheet to be printed, among a few other
things. However, it does allow users to share their spreadsheets with others in
real time via an email invitation, and it is not platform-specific.
The previously elusive goal of Web-based collaboration
appears to be a good idea for those who want to access the same spreadsheet. Common
budget spreadsheets within a department, for example, even if that department
is geographically diverse, would seem to be efficient. Another plus for Web-based
applications is the fact that they aren’t platform-specific and overcome
limitations with file sharing across many different platforms among many
different users. Many different users could access the same information, make
changes and updates, and share that information with others in real time
regardless of the platform being used. This would be much more efficient than
the traditional “email with highlighted changes” protocol. So far, the only
real competition for Microsoft Office has been Sun’s Star Office or the Open
Source Open Office, which have been around for some
time, but have not realistically put a dent in Microsoft’s dominant position.
Also, the appeal of Microsoft’s integration factor should not be discounted. Most
other options are too piecemeal, opening up questions about support,
integration, and seamlessness. However, if a consumer is of the “live free from
MS or die” mindset, this piecemeal approach might be a viable option. Provided,
of course, the consumer is technically able to provide their own overall
support. The Google offering competes mainly with Microsoft and this may be a
large part of its appeal to the ABM crowd.
Speaking of Microsoft, the company has long held sway in getting their prices for operating systems and applications. Just as Open Source Solutions are appearing to challenge Microsoft dominance in the OS world, lower cost options for the office suite may prove attractive to large end users who spend big bucks with Microsoft. Governments, for example (security implications notwithstanding), are always looking for ways to reduce their IT costs. So is Google actively competing with Microsoft by building its own communications suite? It certainly seems that way, much to the delight of some. Is this beta spreadsheet going to be a serious contender in the long haul? Perhaps, provided some serious bugs are worked out, but what will ultimately be the revenue model for such a product? In these times of increasingly large and well publicized security breaches within companies, however, it would seem that consumer confidence in the inviolability of their information is shaky, and that is most likely going to be a larger problem for Google overall than the unavailability of certain spreadsheet macros.
Qlusters: Open Source Meets Systems Management
This week, Qlusters announced some of the progress it is making
with openQRM, its open source systems management solution for virtual
environments and data center automation. Since the product was launched in
January, Qlusters has seen more than 17,000 downloads, and the number of active
contributors to the project has doubled. It has also garnered some recognition
in the form of achieving finalist level in three categories of SourceForge’s
first annual community Choice Awards, and was named “One to Watch” in a recent
review of open source systems management solutions by Computer Business Review. In May Qlusters co-founded the Open
Management Consortium, which seeks to establish conventions and standards to
enable open source integration and interoperability. Qlusters launched this
group along with five other companies, and there are now more than twenty
members. The cofounders include Ayamon, Emu Software, Symbiot, Webmin, and
Zenoss.
Management is a challenge for most IT managers regardless of
the platform their equipment runs on, and this is particularly true for the x86 server space, where the number of servers installed has
grown to uncomfortable management levels. The traditional systems management
players are all heavily involved in this space, but the open source movement is
staking a claim as well. The major management players are pursuing strategies
for building the über-management system that will control nearly everything
except the weather, and we’ve been on our soapbox before about the fact that
working together is ever so much more useful for end users than building yet
another archipelago of vendor creativity. We understand why the vendors aren’t
as keen on this approach, yet we believe that since management is about making
things work together better with minimal hassle to the IT manager, this should
be the macro-philosophy or meta-philosophy: as above, so below. The open source
community frequently understands this better than most and is actually making
quite a go of turning philosophy into practice, as well as giving corporate
lawyers a new realm for specialization. The notion of open source management,
compounded by a consortium of open source management partners is mind
bogglingly good. It gives one hope that IT managers will be able to take their
farms of heterogeneous servers and make them better managed with open source as
an option.
It would seem that mid-market companies are one of the segments that could most benefit from an organization like the Open Management Consortium, in that they want to be able to use products that are integrated, right-sized and affordable. Frequently they can neither afford the products from the traditional vendors in the space, or those products are too big, or too complex for their needs. At the same time, they are less likely to use open source products at this point in time. It’s not a philosophical issue so much as it’s a support issue. Mid-market companies tend to have fewer IT employees without specialization and subsequently less time to spend on products that are not fully integrated or that require special skills. By bringing together the support and capabilities of multiple vendors, mid-market companies may find it easier to use their products and be more likely to try those solutions. While all the big vendors profess to be highly interested in the mid-market, their success has been varied and certainly not as strong as they would like. The smaller open source players are also small or mid-market businesses, and they understand the needs of these companies. The combination could be a winning match if the Open Management Consortium and companies like Qlusters can launch successful marketing to those customers.