Virtualisation technology has been central to the drive to develop the next generation of efficient, easily manageable, highly available, and dynamic data centres.

Applying virtualisation to the data centre ensures idle resources are used more effectively and efficiently. Take the example of ten servers being used at just ten per cent of their individual capacities. Virtualisation can focus usage onto a single server, so that one server is being used to its full potential, while the others are not used, saving power.  Saving power, of course, results in lower carbon emissions and lower costs. 

As the technology develops, it is anticipated that rather than just being used in limited clusters, these techniques will be applied across entire data centres, multiplying the economic and environmental benefits. Ultimately, data centre managers will have an at-a-glance understanding of all the bandwidth, storage, memory and processing resources available to them across an entire data centre.

What else does virtualisation have in store for enterprises?  Without question, future virtualisation developments will be impressive and many are being talked about with no little excitement as having the potential to shape a brave new virtual world within the next few years.

Recession drives reality
In these recessionary times, with cost efficiency and productivity top of CEOs’ and CIOs’ agendas, desktop virtualisation has become attractive.  It promises more efficient use of IT administrative hours and deployment of desktops based on the needs of individual department tasks and computing requirements. Desktop virtualisation promises to make tasks such as provisioning a desktop for a new employee easier to do from the data centre. Instead of uniformity, desktops can be customised from group to group or even employee to employee. Most of a company's staff, for example, might keep running Windows XP, while power users get upgraded to Vista. Desktops would be easier to administer as virtual machines governed by policies in the data centre than built as individual pieces of hardware. 

Virtualisation will be explored in areas previously not considered feasible. Mobile phone companies are already investigating the possibilities of providing multiple phone environments on the same hardware. In the future, for example, you could choose your handset and then specify whether you wanted blackberry OS, Windows Mobile, or both.

Another current frenzy is focused on so-called ‘hypervisors’, virtualisation software that allows multiple operating systems to run on a host computer concurrently – vital if we are to move to a world where an enterprise, any enterprise, is able to use virtual applications and services hosted remotely on third-party infrastructure.  Because hypervisors are OS-neutral, they break a stranglehold Microsoft and other big system vendors have had on the tie between the application and the chip. This architecture opens new ways for an application to handle processing tasks, reducing the exclusive role of the operating system, and promising more innovation and competition in pricing and services on offer.

The possibility of disaster recovery being implemented as a last minute exercise, where the IT manager moves all servers from an existing facility to a backup site, even though it may be hundreds of miles away, is intriguing.  When out-of-control forest fires, such as those that have plagued California, the Mediterranean and Australia this year, are streaking towards your data centre, the ability to send it off to a distant location is, clearly, attractive. 

Follow the moon

This kind of long distance, mass mobility of virtual information could have uses beyond forestalling disaster. They could be used, for example, to migrate virtual machines from data centre to data centre around the world, in a path following the sun (and thus working hours across the globe). Or, even more innovatively, virtual data centres could be migrated around the world to follow the moon and take advantage of lower cost night-time electricity.

Virtualisation’s potential for improving productivity, reducing power consumption and saving money is significant. Whatever the technological developments, however, the real change will take place, or rather will need to take place, in people’s heads. A different mindset will have to be adopted to realise fully the benefits offered by virtualisation.

Steps normally associated with the flow of a particular project will be shortened or removed all together. The use of virtualisation will encourage innovation as the path from concept to testing, to production, is greatly shortened when virtual environments can be rolled out within minutes. When you remove the step of having to acquire physical computing assets before you can test your ideas, you take a great chunk of time and budgetary need out of the equation towards the quest for a refined business solution. A CIO seeking to adopt virtualisation will clearly need to consider these internal, cultural, issues, but there are external issues that also need to be addressed now in order to prepare for the benefits of virtualisation.

Is there a risk that moving to a virtualised environment, where data is stored remotely on virtual servers and where applications handling customer information are run from virtual desktops, could become an issue with customers, for example? Are there regulatory restrictions on how your enterprise can store and manage the data it uses as a business? If your data was made public in error, could this threaten the survival of the business? These questions form the basis of the audit that any CIO should conduct before he takes steps towards virtualisation.

There’s almost no limit to where virtualisation might take the enterprise over the next decade. As with any exciting and emerging technology, there are questions and concerns that people will want to ask and assuage before jumping in. The good news is that, unlike so many of the hype-laden technologies that have been lauded over recent years, the solutions to the issues facing virtualisation, such as internal culture or data security, already exist.

Virtualisation will transform the enterprise. By all means, don’t feel obliged to jump in two-footed, but don’t be afraid to stick your toe in the water.