I know that’s a provocative headline but I didn’t write it. It comes from this blog post
http://blogs.gartner.com/david_cappuccio/2009/06/30/just-a-thought-will-vmware-become-the-next-novell/
I think David raises some interesting questions and perspectives but for me, his last paragraph is the most intriguing.
Do you care? We all run heterogeneous environments anyway, right? But if over time I have two VM’s and need to manage them – which management tool do I use? And here’s the rub – VMware is making great management tools – for managing VMware. But Microsoft’s management suite is designed to manage multiple VM’s from multiple vendors, including VMware. Now, if you find yourself in a situation where VM’s of all types are proliferating with each new system brought in (and they will), the key to reducing your complexity becomes the management tools – and over time standardization of the core products tends to track towards those tools. If the choice is multiple tools to manage multiple vendors vs. a single tool, which decision will most likely prevail? And if you eventually standardize on a single management tool, what’s the likelihood that the “preferred” platform was one designed specifically to run under that vendors tool suite?
I think the focus on management and multi-vendor management is one of the things that really sets Microsoft apart.
I'm back from the holiday weekend. I saw this great post on a number of free tools we make available here at Microsoft, to make things easier for IT.
http://www.infoworld.com/d/windows/no-cost-help-virtualization-and-green-it-720
Ther eare some security tools, Virtualization assessment tools, and a site dedicated to Green IT. They are free to use and download so give it a try.
Here is an article from Washington Technology that talks about the challenges that VMware faces from competition, not just Microsoft. One interesting line from the article comes from Dave McCrory of Hyper9 that said “"People are looking to have mixed environments," he says. "We want to support them all." I think that’s a view that I’ve been hearing a lot of from customers.
With our Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) going on this week, there have been some big announcements on Microsoft Virtualization. I’ll probably post some highlights at weeks end but here is a Channel Web article on how some non-Microsoft people see our new offerings.
http://www.crn.com/software/218401550;jsessionid=UCERVDILA45OOQSNDLRSKHSCJUNN2JVN
Another interesting post on how Virtualization impacts DR/HA.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/Survey-of-IT-Execs-Virtualization-No-Panacea-for-Data-Recovery-832514/
I think a lot of people just assume that once you virtualize systems, that the result is easier DR/HA. As with any technology, it’s just part of a large solution and needs to be understood before deployment. Even more importantly, is understanding how Virtualization can impact, update, and even enhance your existing DR plans.
Recently, Brian Madden made a blog posting about the whole Desktop Virtualization space and the main competitors. While the headline is eye catching, the posting is very well written and even the comments posted are a good read. Definitely food for thought before embarking on a Desktop Virtualization deployment.