
Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2013. Read them in this VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed article by Appcore CTO, Michael Keen
Virtualization Trends 2013
Virtualization is now spreading
through enterprise for a variety of mission critical workloads. In addition to
the ‘virtual first' approach that some enterprises are taking for everyday
workloads, virtualization usage is a key ingredient to making the move to a
cloud operating model. Key trends in virtualization in 2013 and beyond will
drive a larger adoption of cloud operating models.
1.
Virtualization Maturity Assessments Increase
As most
organizations prepare for a move to cloud, they are discovering that they are not
prepared at an organizational level to keep up with the demands that an agile virtualization
infrastructure requires. Organizations will embark on self-administered or
technology partner-driven maturity assessments to determine their current state
and provide a clear decision on their future state.
2.
Increased Adoption of Virtualization Management
Best Practices
Once
organizations complete the analysis and assessment of their current state of virtualization
efforts, most will start to implement or improve their current virtualization
management best practices. With more workloads destined for virtual platforms,
management best practices are critical to that success, and this adoption will
increase from its levels in the low to mid-20% range to the mid-30% range.
3.
Converged Infrastructure Approach
Independent
research firm, Wikibon, forecasted that by 2017, two-thirds of IT
infrastructure would be delivered through converged offerings. Customers will
adopt a converged infrastructure approach to assist in the implementation of
virtualization management best practices. This will minimize the complexity
that exists around current management tools and the existence of multiple
server pools.
4.
Private and Hybrid Cloud are top of Mind
As more
organizations hear and read about the public cloud outages, more firms will open
to building their own private IaaS services. This creates challenges for the current
state of IT and makes the need for virtualization maturity assessments and
management best practice adoption that much more important.
Virtualization is the
foundation for what IT needs to do to help businesses stay competitive. The
increased adoption of virtualization technologies will help IT move from the
inflexible, costly architectures of the past to a shared, service-oriented
infrastructure, that delivers more value to the business and their customers.
Rather than acting as an obstacle to change, IT becomes the business enabler to
maximize return, mitigate risk, improve performance and increase agility.
We live and work in a world of accelerating
change. To thrive in this world we must be able to embrace change quickly,
thoroughly and efficiently. Traditional enterprise models have always emphasized
just the opposite view: that change is the exception. The reality is that rapid
change is the norm and IT must evolve the enterprise models, people, processes
and technology to acknowledge that truth. Virtualization helps accomplish this
and is a critical component of that evolution.
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About the Author
Michael Keen is the Chief Technology Officer at
Appcore. Along with being a business strategist, enterprise architect,
frequent keynote speaker, blogger and industry analyst who works with
business and technical leaders in large companies to apply emerging
technology to drive digital transformation and growth, Michael is
involved with advising startups looking to enter the US market.