In case you missed it, check out the Podcast interview where Virtual Strategy Magazine spoke with Rich Lechner, VP of Virtualization at IBM about their company-wide approach to virtualization. The Podcast lasts about 22 minutes and covers numerous topics such as storage virtualization, client virtualization, IBM Systems Director, IBM Virtual Manager, SOA, Disaster Recovery, Workload Manager and more.
Background
Rich Lechner - Vice President of Virtualization, IBM
Rich Lechner was named vice president, Virtualization, for IBM in November of 2005. In his new position, Mr. Lechner leads IBM's company-wide approach to Virtualization. He is charged with making it simpler and less expensive for customers to optimize and integrate their hardware, software, storage, networks and computer systems.
Mr. Lechner has served in a number of business leadership positions in IBM. Prior to his new assignment, Mr. Lechner served as vice president of Marketing for IBM's Storage Systems Group where he was responsible for IBM’s product management strategy for the complete line of hardware and software storage products. He has also served as vice president, Marketing and Sales, for Enterprise Servers within IBM Systems Group, including its flagship IBM eServer zSeries portfolio. Prior to that, he was vice president of Sales Support for IBM's entire eServer family of products, including its UNIX and Intel-based servers. In this role he was responsible for transforming customer businesses into e-businesses and directing the company's Customer Design Centers and Advanced Technology Centers.
Mr. Lechner has held senior development, marketing, and sales positions with IBM in the United States and in Europe, including Sales Manager of IBM Software Group's largest accounts from 1994 to 1997. In addition, he was director of Strategy for IBM Software Group and was instrumental in establishing the company's commitment to Linux and open standards. He began his career at IBM as a micro-code programmer in the Financial Services Industry.
Mr. Lechner holds a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science from UCLA.
IBM Virtualization highlights:
- IBM pioneered virtualization technology on the mainframe 40 years ago.
- IBM has been a leader in applying virtualization technology to server and storage offerings.
- IBM continues to see server virtualization as an important, game-changing technology across the entire datacenter, not just x86 systems. Customers of all sizes benefit from deploying virtualization technology.
- IBM, unlike many of its leading competitors, provides solutions that allow virtualization beyond specific hardware or specific software. This allows IBM to distance itself from the competition and to allow more customers easier entry to the technology.
- Today, IBM’s portfolio of Virtualization Engine capabilities can virtualize up to 80% of a client’s infrastructure.
- In many instances, IBM’s customers that use its Virtualization Engine offerings experience a significant return-on-investment after only one week.
- Forrester Research reports server virtualization has surpassed all other forms of infrastructure virtualization, including storage and network resource virtualization.
To help with some background as well, “virtualization” is often equated with server partitioning. Innovative virtualization technologies from IBM extend that concept far beyond simple partitioning on a single server to a systems virtualization platform. This platform includes server and storage technologies, and common tools to deliver workload and platform management across your IT environment. Virtualization can help you improve TCO, while increasing infrastructure flexibility.
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/virtualization/
Listen to the Podcast, here.