Here are some good reads related to the future of VM:

Future of Virtualization Management – Interop Vegas
Barb Goldworm, President & Chief Analyst for FOCUS (market research firm focused on virtualization) served as the moderator for a panel of vendor experts on the topic of the “future of virtualization management”.

Top 10 Virtualization Trends
I thought I would take this moment to reflect on what my counterparts predicted for this year in January.
Back then, virtualization was at the top of the list of strategic IT priorities for organizations around the world – and I believe it still is. But has the industry made good on the top 10 virtualization trends of 2009?

No sooner did I speculate on who will make a run at providing p-cloud (private cloud) management tools than VMWare comes charging like malcontent bull in a Pamplona ally.

Like Apple before it, VMWare is co-opting a single letter of the alphabet to brand a series of products. Apple owns ‘i’ and VMWare now owns ‘v’. I hereby establish my claim to ‘g’ for everything I create, such as g-confusion and g-discontent (good thing I don’t sell musical instrument strings).

One of VMWare’s initiatives is vCloud, which is one component of their broader Virtual Datacenter Operating System (VDC-OS) gestalt. VDC-OS – a clumsy acronym in an otherwise slick acronym flooded market – seeks to virtualize the data center in very broad terms. It already has select virtualization components for CPUs, storage and network and a 2009 road map for central management.

What is interesting about their announcement this week is the addition of a security module. Though conceptually there is nothing fancy about their security addition, it is the addition itself which is telling. As I recently mentioned, the winner in the p-cloud space will have to stitch together all the normal IT functions into one tool that allows the total abstraction of the data center – auto-discovery, server classification, network segment management, virtualization, provisioning, monitoring, redundancy, failover, alerting and more. That VMWare has taken on a small aspect of security shows they understand the whole product definition for p-cloud management is incomplete.

It is good that they recognize the problem. I wonder if they foresee the solution.

P-clouds present a perpetual problem with whole product development, namely that nobody can do it on their own. The primary reason the high tech business is rife with alliance that change faster than smoochers at a spin-the-bottle party is that everyone is seeking to create a whole product by getting other companies to provide some part of the total solution. As markets and competitive realities change, so do alliances.

The closest thing to a permanent relationship in Silicon Valley exists between Larry Ellison and his ego. After that the longevity of a press release is the nearest runner-up.

So VMWare faces a problem. To virtualize the data center requires providing in a virtualization management tool all the infrastructure management components that CTO’s have bought over the years from best of breed vendors. VMWare would be certifiably insane to try building VDC-OS by itself. They do not have not can they acquire and rapidly integrate expertise in all the different facets of data center management. They have to partner and open VDC-OS in such a way that other solution providers can port their existing technologies into VMWare’s evolving infrastructure.

Cisco helps. Nobody knows networking like Cisco, and they have tagged with VMWare on some other projects. Since virtualizing the network is part of the whole product definition for p-clouds, VMWare has a head start. Expect partnerships with HP (monitoring ala OpenView), possibly AlarmPoint (alerting) and others. VMWare has already implemented an API to bridge VDC-OS the data center cloud to external clouds, so perhaps the APIs will enable other technologies to aid in managing a p-cloud.

Do not expect a lot of participation from Microsoft and Citrix.

In the oddest alliance since Microsoft and Novel made kissy-face, Redmond has partnered with Citrix to bridge not only Hyper-V and Xen but Citrix’s more capable virtualization management tool. This is a shotgun marriage where two competitors with nothing even close to a whole product are teaming to block VMWare’s inertia. Microsoft and Citrix stand to lose enterprise mindshare if (or perhaps when) VMWare brings true p-clod capabilities to the market.

VMWare has a vision, and at first glance appears to understand that they need to open their architecture to extend it outwardly. As interest in VDC-OC grows, they VMWare will feel the heat to open further – ala Salesforce.com App Exchange – to allow nearly any addition functionality to be added without VMWare having to build it themselves.

Once I see that, I’ll know who will lead … nay, who will own the p-cloud market.

Guy Smith is the chief consultant for Silicon Strategies Marketing (http://www.SiliconStrat.com). Guy brings a combination of technical, managerial and marketing experience to Silicon Strategies projects. Directly and as a consultant, Guy has worked with a variety of technology-producing organizations. A partial list of these technology firms include DeviceAnywhere (mobile applications), ORBiT Group (high-availability backup software), Telamon (wireless middleware), Wink Communications (interactive television), LogMeIn (remote desktop), FundNET (SaaS), DeviceAnywhere (mobile applications), Open-Xchange (groupware), VA Software (enterprise software), Virtual Iron (server virtualization), SUSE (Linux distributions and applications), BrainWave (application prototyping) and Novell.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Guy_Smith
http://EzineArticles.com/?Cloud-Cover—VMWares-Market-Charge&id=2060473

Wed, May 13, 2009 Network World Oracle is continuing its spending spree with an agreement to buy Virtual Iron, an acquisition that will help Oracle enhance its Xen-based server virtualization software.

Virtualization Wars Heat Up Again

Watch a slideshow of the hottest M&As of 2009.

The combination of Oracle’s VM hypervisor and Virtual Iron’s technology will help customers optimize capacity utilization with more dynamic resource management; reduce server power consumption with automated power management tools; and provide deeper insight into server performance and utilization at every layer, according to Oracle.

Virtual Iron’s server virtualization management platform will become part of the Oracle VM and Oracle Enterprise Manager product lines. The acquisition, announced Wednesday, is expected to close this summer. Financial details were not disclosed.

“The combined suite of products is expected to simplify the deployment and configuration of physical servers, virtual machines, and applications while providing a highly available platform for hosting Oracle software and other enterprise applications,” Oracle said.

The announcement comes less than a month after Oracle unveiled a deal to purchase Sun for $7.4 billion.

Compared with VMware, Citrix and Microsoft, Oracle is a small player in the server virtualization market, with its hypervisor and management tools sold largely to customers already using other Oracle products such as its flagship database.

Oracle said Virtual Iron will continue to operate as a separate company, but only until the purchase agreement is closed. “After the closing, Oracle will provide more information on product direction,” the company said.

Oracle did not seem to offer any assurances that it will continue supporting Virtual Iron products in an announcement letter and presentations related to the acquisition. “The goal of the combination is to complement Oracle offerings,” the company said. Oracle said Virtual Iron technology will continue to be enhanced, but as part of the Oracle VM and Enterprise Manager product lines.

“Oracle is currently reviewing the existing Virtual Iron product road map and will be providing guidance to customers in accordance with Oracle’s standard product communication policies,” Oracle says in a slide deck discussing the acquisition. “Any resulting features and timing of release of such features as determined by Oracle’s review of Virtual Iron product road map are at the sole discretion of Oracle.”

Both Virtual Iron and Oracle base their virtualization products on Linux and the Xen open source hypervisor, but the products are complementary, with Virtual Iron adding dynamic resource management and ease of use capabilities, Oracle says.

Oracle says it expects to keep Virtual Iron employees on to leverage their “deep domain expertise in operating systems and virtualization.”