What do Virtualization and Cloud executives think about 2010?  Find out in this VMblog.com series exclusive.

Contributed Article By Alan Robin, CEO, Xangati

The Paradigm Shift to Virtualization

Until now, virtualization has been largely about cost savings and green IT. Rightly so, these benefits are extremely seductive. Fewer physical servers in the data center leads to reduced power and cooling costs, not to mention savings on server hardware and related maintenance over time. At a time when IT departments are driven to cut costs, virtualization projects are underway everywhere.

But, to any organization considering virtualization as a business solution, the decision should also be about virtualization as a more strategic long-term asset versus the result of simply saving a buck here and there. At the end of the day, virtualization is about business transformation. Because of virtualization technologies, IT departments are now able to catch up with and adapt to the speed and needs of business change. An organization's users aren't tethered; so, why should their business critical applications be?  They shouldn't, but the challenge that IT has found that it is no small task to win the trust of the business application owners to become part of the virtualization movement.  However, I see that process of getting the business owners on board being greatly accelerated over the course of 2010.

My prediction is that business transformation through virtualization will be a tangible reality for many organizations in the year to come.  My confidence in predicting this paradigm shift for 2010-which has been verbalized by others-stems from the fact that the technology to help manage virtualization has finally matured to where it can help virtualization scale to new heights.  Virtualization management solutions, like Xangati's (for instance) have evolved to the point where they can keep up with the dynamic rate of change within the virtualization ecosystem and at the same time track communications between the virtual world and users on the physical network. 

The importance of new management models for the virtual world is also underscored by larger players like VMWare and Computer Associates. VMWare ‘s previous acquisitions of B-hive Conductor, SpringSource/Hyperic, as well as CA's most recent acquisition of NetQoS reflect the increasing focus on optimizing virtual implementations versus the efforts of just building them. In the coming year, as virtualization initiatives become more strategic and more pressure is placed on the management tools needed to support them, we can expect to see the spotlight shine even more brightly on the linkage between virtualization management solutions and business transformation.

In 2010, growing optimism with the economy will lead IT managers to think more strategically versus frugally, understand that what they've created is of huge importance to the entire infrastructure of their organization and has lasting impact. Once realized, IT managers will begin to market the flexibility of the infrastructure that they've created; and, in turn, open up an entirely new realm of possibilities for cost-savings, business efficiency and organizational innovation. We, at Xangati, look forward to the shift and our part in successfully making it happen.

About the Author

Alan Robin, CEO, Xangati

Prior to Xangati, Alan was President & CEO of netVmg, which was acquired by Internap. He was also previously VP of Sales for CacheFlow, which is now Blue Coat Systems, leading that company through a highly-successful IPO. Robin also held VP of Sales positions at Ipsilon, which was acquired by Nokia, and Bay Networks/Wellfleet Communications. Robin holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Kenyon College and an MBA in Finance from Fairleigh-Dickenson University.