Contributed article by Rick Vanover (vExpert, MCITP, VCP), product strategy specialist for Veeam Software

2014: Forget virtual first, now it’s virtual only!

Each year when we take a look at what has transpired, we also stop and think what may be coming in the future. In 2014, I'll go so far as to say that it may be the year of 100% virtualized for many people.

Setting percentage goals like such for virtualized environments is good; however they may fall short of the finish line in regards to direct benefits to the business. We don't virtualize our data centers (operating systems, networks, storage, applications and more) without a purpose. In fact, there are many reasons why we have gone down this route. We started this journey to save money and space, additional reasons included quicker and easier deployment, and current investments can increase performance with some of the new storage and networking options as well.

But what is the real driver? It's the benefits to the business. The reality is we can only achieve a certain level of technology resiliency when we virtualize. Everything from self-deployment, amazing backups, enhanced off-site options, operational efficiencies and more can trace back to leveraging the very capable virtualization platforms of today. Both VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V provide incredible rich frameworks to work with in all regards. With those platforms, companies are at a real risk of missing out on the full potential of those benefits.

Veeam has been encouraging companies to strive for 100% virtualization; obviously so as our solutions apply only to virtualized environments. It's fair to assume that everybody wants to be virtualized; it's just a matter of how to get to that point. Do the applications need to change? Is it a money discussion? Is there a massive IT cleanup needed? Whatever the challenge, the benefits are clear. I don't think it's out of the question to say that it's a risk versus reward discussion, and the rewards are strong.

So that's why I feel that 2014 will be the year of 100% virtualization, for some. Hopefully most of you will get there. I'm not saying it's easy, but I am saying it's worth it. While I know there are a number of situations that can't go 100% virtualized, and their reasons outweigh the benefits of being virtualized; let's hope the majority of virtualized infrastructures can realize the benefits like it is indeed 2014.

##

About the Author