by Tom Bittman | August 11, 2009 | 8 Comments
Few organizations that I talk to seem to understand the strategic ramifications of server virtualization. They tend to think about cost-cutting – virtualization simply as a form of efficient consolidation. We’ve surveyed our clients – those starting out on virtualization say they are doing it to save money. They are thinking tactically. Hey, there’s nothing [...]
Category: Agility Cloud Future of Infrastructure Virtualization Tags: cloud computing, private cloud, Virtualization
by Tom Bittman | February 24, 2009 | 1 Comment
At VMworld Europe 2009, Citrix made an important virtualization industry announcement – their XenServer package will carry no license price (just support). This package includes centralized management of distributed VMs, and live migration capability. It isn’t everything you need to manage a virtual machine pool, but many smaller companies who might have avoided virtualization completely [...]
Category: Cloud Virtualization Tags: Citrix, cloud computing, Microsoft, Virtualization, VMware
by Tom Bittman | February 20, 2009 | 1 Comment
We spend a lot of time at Gartner looking ahead. But it’s also fun to look at what might have been… What if no one had developed an x86 hypervisor? How well would multi-core x86 processors be selling today? What if Microsoft had acquired VMware in 2001? Would they have snuffed it out (until something [...]
Category: Virtualization Tags: Microsoft, Virtualization, VMware
by Tom Bittman | January 21, 2009 | 5 Comments
Cisco’s public blog recently announced an architectural approach they call “Unified Computing”. There’s been a lot of speculation about Cisco moving into the blade server business and so forth. I think Cisco just made clear that in their view the network may be at the center of IT, but “unifying” it with computing and storage [...]
Category: Cloud Future of Infrastructure Virtualization Tags: Amazon, Cisco, cloud computing, data centers, Future of Infrastructure, google, private cloud, Virtualization, VMware
by Tom Bittman | January 7, 2009 | 3 Comments
Why is virtualization important? Why is cloud computing compelling? Why is agility becoming so important in data centers? It isn’t simply about saving money – although that does help create a business case. It’s about our inevitable cultural speed shift, and it’s driven by our kids. When I was young, I wanted everything “now”. We [...]
Category: Agility Cloud Future of Infrastructure Virtualization Tags: cloud computing, elasticity, google, Virtualization
by Tom Bittman | December 3, 2008 | 5 Comments
What a crazy and exhilarating week in Las Vegas! I delivered the keynote at Gartner’s 27th annual Data Center Conference this week. Here are four major points I made. Later I’ll post some key take-aways from hours and hours of conversations – lots of great insights from conversations between our analysts and more than 1,800 [...]
Category: Cloud Future of Infrastructure Virtualization Tags: Amazon, cloud computing, Future of Infrastructure, Microsoft, Virtualization
by Tom Bittman | October 11, 2008 | Submit a Comment
This week at Gartner’s Symposium in Orlando I will be presenting “Virtualization Changes Virtually Everything” and “The Future of Infrastructure and Operations: The Engine of Cloud Computing”. Ken Dulaney and I will also be leading a Masterminds discussion with Cisco’s CEO and Chairman, John Chambers. Here’s what you can expect: On Monday, my “Virtualization” presentation [...]
Category: Cloud Future of Infrastructure Virtualization Tags: Cisco, cloud computing, Microsoft, private cloud, Virtualization, VMware
by Tom Bittman | September 22, 2008 | 3 Comments
I had a conversation with some folks at Intel today, and they referred to research from IDC on what Virtualization 2.0 looked like. This got me thinking. There is a tendency to take a trend like virtualization and wrap every other trend inside it. That creates a semantic nightmare, in my opinion. Virtualization does not [...]
Category: Cloud Future of Infrastructure Virtualization Tags: cloud computing, elasticity, Virtualization
by Tom Bittman | September 16, 2008 | Submit a Comment
At VMworld today, VMware announced two strategic shifts that are as important as they are unsurprising. One pits VMware firmly against powerhouses IBM, HP and Microsoft in the competition for infrastructure control. The other extends VMware’s virtualization story into cloud computing. Are they overreaching? The first, “Virtual Data Center Operating System”, is what Gartner defined [...]
Category: Cloud Virtualization Tags: Amazon, cloud computing, Microsoft, Virtualization, VMware
by Tom Bittman | September 15, 2008 | 1 Comment
I’m getting an interesting question more often every week: “How do I become more cloud-like – what are cloud providers doing that I can emulate?” Several people at our Web Innovation Summit in L.A. this week have asked me the same question. The answer is important – for more than seven years, Gartner has been [...]
Category: Agility Cloud Future of Infrastructure Virtualization Tags: cloud computing, elasticity, Future of Infrastructure, Microsoft, private cloud, Virtualization, VMware
