Does Virtualization Equal ‘Bullet Proof’?

Virtualization has been available to the IT world for more than four decades, yet it has still not really taken off in the multi system environment.  Many vendors are pushing this approach to deploying ‘flexible technology’, yet it still has not emerged beyond the ‘glass house’ of the data centers or server closets.  IBM invented this technology 40 years ago and Microsoft is pushing this ‘old wine in new bottles’ with their ‘Dynamic IT’ moniker.  The Microsoft approach is laid out in “Harnessing the Power of Virtualization for Dynamic IT”,  January 21, 2008 by Bob Muglia, Senior Vice President, Server and Tools Business, Microsoft Corporation at http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/2008/01-21virtualization.mspx.  Still this technology has not taken off for the enterprise.  What are the reasons for this deployment stalemate?  Some of the reasons and aspects of deploying these virtual technologies are:

• Complexity: This technology is too complex for IT architects, development or operations professionals to understand.  They are used to developing systems that provide tangible functionality in a tangible way in environments that can be measured and managed.  There are not many adequate tools to manage virtual and physical environments together. 
• Security: Whenever anyone says the environments are very flexible and unconstrained, I know there is going to be a security and control problems.  Today, it is so difficult to keep the ‘hatches batten down’ against security, compliance or confidentiality breaches in tightly controlled rigid environments.   All the senior IT executives that I work with are under the ‘Sword of Damocles’ to keep their organizations safe and sound.  Why would they want to move to this still to be proven technology that can potentially move their computing from the mainframes and servers to across their networks to all the desktops in their organization?  Don’t you think there will be some ramifications if a major chunk of confidential client data gets mixed into some ones instant messaging or email stream?   
• Unified Communications: A large part of this technology relies on unified communication systems. These are most often managed by telecoms without the full integration, and bandwidth and hardening required for industrial strength IT operations and consolidation of all the virtual resources across the organization.  This represents a huge loss of control for IT. 

While is true that there is great promise for virtualization, its’ time is still not quite here, except for data centre rationalization, storage farms and server consolidation.   The dream of running all resources in a ‘big basket’ is not ready for prime time.  

Again there is much promise in this technology that will make IT more cost efficient, responsive and flexible… More work is required to assure the IT buyer that this technology is very robust and secure.  The underlying complexity and security management issues require better unified management, security and control technologies systems to make virtualization ‘bullet proof’.  Enterprise customers really need something that can be taken for granted to make it feasible to run across their large operations.    

See: http://blogs.itworldcanada.com/insights/2008/01/29/does-virtualization-equal-%e2%80%98bullet-proof%e2%80%99/

Some sober second thoughts on 2008 IT predictions

The New Year always starts with a bang of predictions on what’s hot and what’s not. Most of these predictions are just more hype to get you going with some new technologies or get some more zip into your conversations.

The best list of predictions I have seen for 2008 is the in the McKinsey Quarterly, January 9, 2007 entitled ‘Eight business technology trends to watch”. To quote this paper, ”Technology alone is rarely the key to unlocking economic value: companies create real wealth when they combine technology with new ways of doing business. … The McKinsey trends fall within three broad areas of business activity: managing relationships, managing capital and assets, and leveraging information in new ways.”

The piece is well written. It describes trends for technology as business or organizational outcomes and objectives and not just technical jargon. You can confidently send this along to your business and IT counterparts whose eyes tend to glaze over from management buzz words or techno-speak.

Highlighted is the ubiquitous move to collaboration, social networking and the new web (Web2.0) is given prominence as a collaborative tool for organizations and individuals:

“Web 2.0 technologies—it has become a more widespread platform for interaction, communication, and activism. Consumers increasingly want to engage online with one another and with organizations of all kinds. Companies can tap this new mood of customer engagement for their economic benefit.”

That is fair enough. Fact is, for many large organizations and financial institutions with very serious security requirements web 2.0ish implementations have to be handled carefully. But there are “sandbox” solutions out there that work admirably.

I suggest getting IT planning, security and communication groups work together to explore the opportunities and evolve new processes that can succeed for companies where reputation and security are core raison d’être.

Effective Web2.0 is not the only issue for beleaguered IT leaders. There is much pressure to get into virtualization, green computing, open source, and a plethora of new approaches. Here are some things I know from my advisory work and experience which must be included on your list for 2008:

• Relentless pressure on cutting costs and contributing to the bottom line
• Improved security that runs throughout the organization’s interactions, people and its systems, not just around them
• Protecting your information assets right down to the attribute level
• Using software as a service effectively and getting it properly deployed
• Further integration of your systems to allow for slicing and dicing your data into business information that can be used to better manage or build new businesses
• Unplugging the mainframe and less efficient technologies which can no longer be efficiently or properly supported
• Getting on track with ‘green computing’ so you continue to minimize your environmental footprint and eventually go at least ‘carbon neutral’
• Start making ‘the cloud’ work, network computing and sharing of resources through virtualization and other techniques really is giving us a headache.

These are some opening thoughts for discussion in 2008 and beyond… I ask for your contributions, comments and insights as part of this blog.