Virtualisation taking on the ‘mega vendors‘

The virtual machine is becoming an application platform and has created an entirely new method of software packaging, delivery and management – leading to software as a service.

“Virtualisation is really the catch all for lots of things divorcing physical underlying technology, such as the server network not dependent on underlying technology. It can be flexible because it is not tied to underlying hardware,” Sargeant said.

“Once you have got a virtualisation layer you can run on a lot of different applications and not be tied to underlying technology.”

He said that where previously IT departments would purchase one server for one application, with the use of systems such as VMWare a multiple number of virtual machines and applications can be run and utilise more than 80 percent of the sever workload instead of what in the past would be around only 20 percent.

“The big advantage is that you are not tied to underlying hardware and can move workloads around to other servers,” he said. “You can create additional capacity while implementing cost savings from reduced physical hardware and energy.”

Sargeant said the next steps in server virtualisation are in moving beyond cost savings to achieve better agility.

He said Australia has quickly embraced server virtualisation compared to other countries in the Asia Pacific region and is now set to develop the next step in virtualisation – the desktop.

“A lot of people are looking at desktop virtualisation – not so much as cost savings – but to offer users greater flexibility and the facility to operate multiple application,” Sargeant said.

“This virtual desktop infrastructure will typically be looked at by those who can understand what is being offered to them and can recognise the advantages to implementing it into desktop.”

Sargeant said there are new opportunities for the channels in the SMB market.

“SMBs are probably only starting to evaluate what advantages are likely to be afforded to them. They must see a demonstrated case of ‘what it can do for me?’ and what can it save me?’”

“They might have never used any virtualisation in the past and have to be convinced by a compelling reason to do so.”

David Blackman, director of VMware’s Partner Organisation, said virtualisation is undoubtedly the hottest trend in IT.

“In Australia, at all levels of business – private and public – we are seeing very high penetration levels of a virtualisation technology because it ticks all the right boxes – reduced costs and greater operational efficiencies to realise budgetary efficiencies, as well as the all pervasive ‘Green issues,’” he said.

Blackman said for the channel in Australia, virtualisation gives resellers “a license to hunt”.

“Once an infrastructure is standardised on VMware, there is up to a 10:1 drag from licenses on ongoing support and service opportunities, and this is the space the Australian channel should be targeting for continuing revenue streams.”

Blackman said the reason for the hype in the technology is that it fundamentally delivers cost saving on hardware deployment.

“It is really about the server platform utilising the entire hardware – that is every byte and piece of RAM.

“Typically in the past, servers were only five to 10 percent utilised just running programs such as Windows.

“We take all that excess capacity and utilise it so you can run 10 or 50 machines off one server.”

While the technology has been around for many years with mainframes from vendors such as IBM, the current Intel server environment allows for a virtualised system to operate at a much cheaper rate with increased power and easier management.

The next big opportunity for virtualisation according to Blackman is in the small to medium business space (SMBs) and in desktop virtualisation.

“IDC says only 25 percent of SMBs have virtualised, which means 75 percent have done nothing,” Blackman said. “A lot of resellers might think big partners have taken the lion’s share but there are plenty of greenfields customers and there is also plenty of continuing business with existing customers.

data centre mega on taking the vendors virtualisation