
Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2014. Read them in this VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed article by Jim Potter, VP of Product at Hostway
Six Predictions for Virtualization in 2014
In light of a dynamic market with continuous product development and the
emergence of new players, here are our predictions for virtualization in 2014.
Windows Server 2012 R2 will level the virtualization playing
field: This new Microsoft operating system should draw more MS-based businesses into the virtualization space. WS 2012 R2
closes the gap significantly between Microsoft and VMware, and with the portion
of SMBs running Windows, this robust virtualization offering should make a real
difference in terms of cloud adoption.
Companies "Second Sourcing" will increase: Businesses may
not be ready to switch their virtualization strategy uniformly across their
existing infrastructure, but they're also concerned with costs and potential
lock-in with a vendor specific technology. One of the potential burdens of
being "locked in" with a particular vendor is the lack of ability to customize
the solution to meet the needs of the business which may lead to higher costs.
Businesses using the Second Sourcing strategy of deploying different
virtualization technologies in separate parts of an organization are increasing
in quantity and this trend will likely continue to thrive.
More SMBs will use virtualization: Word of the reduced capital expenditure offered by virtualization
is spreading. As more businesses learn about its capabilities and savings,
virtualization will see increased adoption among IT departments in the majority
of companies upgrading their infrastructure in 2014.
Hard choices are coming for cloud service: IaaS vendors will
need to be increasingly in-tune to their customer base to further hone their
offerings to address the needs of both SMBs and Enterprise customers.
BCDR adoption will bolster overall virtualization adoption. The
decreasing expense of legitimate disaster recovery plans will help replication
technology adoption outpace growth of other virtualization technologies. While
many businesses have insufficient DR plans, the urgency of the message -
combined with the growing financial accessibility and the regulatory demands in
several industries - is driving accelerated adoption. For any decision-maker
aware of the business impacts associated with a disaster, the idea of being
back up and running within minutes after a catastrophe will yield traction.
IT knowledge will be the biggest hurdle for virtualization
technologies. For many other virtualization technologies, the remaining
adoption hurdle for SMBs is lack of IT savvy. True virtualization requires true
competency, and paying for true cloud competency isn't within reach of some
businesses, especially those who have only one true IT professional. This feeds
back into the education idea in general: With so many companies popping up
offering cloud, and defining cloud in so many different ways, the concept gets
muddled in the mind of the average corporate decision-maker, who must figure
out which solution fixes his or her unique problem.
It's important to remember that there's order to the cloud chaos. Predictable
trends form and run their course; many of them are derived from common-sense
observation of the state of cloud computing. Companies' must observe, detect
and adapt to the momentum flowing around them to thrive. It's not just a guessing
game - there's science to it.
##
About the Author
Jim Potter is Vice President of Product Management at
Hostway, a leader in Cloud, Managed, and Hybrid Hosting. He leads the product
management and product marketing activities for the cloud hosting service
provider. Find out more about Hostway at www.hostway.com.