Virtualization Across the Board
CIS512 Enterprise Architecture

Technology is one aspect of business that can universally enhance any company’s capabilities and add resources to offer a positive impact on the bottom line. However, information technology comes with its own implementation barriers that can complicate matters when making IT investments with an expectation to generate a return on that investment. The biggest impact of virtualization in cost structures is the radical change in how technology is implemented and paid for. Previously, any new technology could require a capital investment, lead times for setup and training, and continuing overhead in the form of support and maintenance personnel. In order to justify this risk, the return on investment had to be exceptionally strong and the company would require excess free capital. All virtualization services are offered without the need for any capital outlay or lead time; once a subscription plan is worked out, the resources are automatically available through any internet connection (Kishore 2012). For companies with existing IT departments, additional servers or services can be brought online immediately and seamlessly. The services offered also allow businesses to enjoy economies of scale, even for miniscule implementations. This also means that companies have access to the latest technology upgrades and updates along with security features and protocols without having to undergo costly IT renovations. In addition to operational efficiency, energy efficiency is also gained through virtualization. Nearly any piece of information technology, from a single program all the way up to full blown networks and infrastructure, can be made virtual. The end result means any business function that requires or can be enhanced by IT resources, can be utilized on a subscription or per-use basis rather than having to implement a new project to install local devices. At the personal scale, one computer can run multiple virtual operating systems. No longer will compatibility issues between PCs, Macs, or Linux plague companies. Any single computer can create a virtual operating system and run programs that were designed for different operating systems. Application virtualization allows a central computer or server to host a program and run the application on multiple desktops. For example, instead of installing a word processor on each and every computer in an office, a single copy can be hosted from the network on demand to every office that needs to create documents. This allows new terminals to be set up without any installation CDs or IT staff oversight, greatly accelerating deployment of desktops and applications. Entire computers can also be made virtual (Kishore 2012). Instead of having an actual CPU in every office, all the computing power can be stored on one high-efficiency, high-capacity central computer. Each office would then consist of just a keyboard, mouse, and monitor that are connected to this central computer. All of the work would be done by the central computer and then transmitted back to the office terminal, without any change in how a worker uses their workstation. In this way, a company will never have extra computers lying around nor will they have idle workstations consuming energy. On the larger scale, data storage, email archiving, and data management can all become virtual. Data servers, archived information, and remote backup services can all be hosted by an IT firm. Historically, Microsoft reaches feature levels that satisfy most users such that many don't feel compelled to seek better alternatives, even when better alternatives exist. Right now, Microsoft isn't a strong alternative in virtualization. Someone looking at Microsoft's technology has to ask themselves whether today's implementation is indeed good enough to use or if it's better to wait and virtualize when Microsoft does deliver, or if the immediate need is so great that an alternative, like VMware, should be used right now. In all its spheres, from the desktop to the server, tight integration is the focus and primary value of a Microsoft ecosystem. In virtualization, Microsoft promises depth of management, achieved with its System Center's integrated view of all the virtualization technologies used in a given data center (Microsoft.com 2012). In virtualization, consider an application running inside of a SoftGrid application streaming virtual environment inside of a virtual server in the data center and piping its display using Terminal Services to a Virtual PC inside of someone's desktop has so many layers of encapsulation that traditional management tools simply don't have an accurate view of what's happening. Microsoft's focus with their System Center management suite is to provide that visibility down to the iron itself. What's good about this? The concept does address a challenge that happens with too many layers of encapsulation. Networking people have repeatedly experienced this phenomenon, most recently with encapsulating XML in HTTP, when the tools for monitoring no longer have sufficient depth to accurately see what's happening. In Microsoft's view of the virtualized data center, multiple layers of virtualization are inevitable (Microsoft.com 2012). This means that tools to identify resource allocation and provisioning are going to be critical. Is there anything that might not be so good? That all depends on whether you believe Microsoft's commoditized virtualization technology will deliver what you need for virtualization in the data center in the first place. Microsoft does have a strong position with their Virtual PC, Terminal Services and SoftGrid technologies. Historically, Citrix has had a solid history of supporting multiple ecosystems and encouraging their channel to support them. This approach has resulted in an impressive array of products being developed for their suite that address many verticals (Citrix.com 2012). ISVs invest in the Citrix machine because they see a viable business they know that Citrix tries not to step on its friends. This is great for IT managers in these verticals. From a product perspective, ecosystem building is nice but it doesn't tell you where a company is going with their engineers. Hypervisors will be commoditized as core components of servers. When virtualization is done right, said it is part of the infrastructure itself. Storage Area Network isn't virtualized by software; the SAN is instead aware of the virtual infrastructure and works optimally with virtual infrastructure. In some cases, this means helping infrastructure vendors by giving them the hypervisor. For others, it simply means running an open hypervisor platform. In essence, the future of data centers is one where virtualization is so embedded in everything that needs to be done that the infrastructure knows how to abstract itself instead of depending on others to do the abstraction for it (Kishore 2012). The concept is definitely a little heady at first, but it doesn't take long to identify the potential of a fully-virtualized data center where everything is responsible for virtualizing itself. As a result of this fully-commoditized vision, Citrix identifies their contribution at the application level. In short, how Citrix can deliver an application, regardless of what the application needs of its infrastructure, that makes both the operational and end user experience better. This approach requires that everyone agree to play nice with virtual environments and standards to be established in this area. It's a tall order (Citrix.com 2012). Citrix's aggressive push is paying off. The bottom line is Citrix will differentiate itself based on what they do with their core technology and how they build a community of products around it to create the fully virtualized datacenter as opposed to differentiating based on the core technology itself. VMware has succeeded in virtualizing significant parts of the infrastructure and moving the ball forward with hypervisor technologies, such as live migration using VMotion (VMware.com 2012). VMware's goal is to fully abstract the data center environment so that all virtual hosts only see the view that VMware gives them appears to be an achievable endgame. The significance of this approach is that it becomes possible to present a uniform view of the world, regardless of whether the world knows what to do with virtual machines or not. For data centers that would otherwise need to upgrade infrastructure to support virtualization, this can be a very appealing proposition in that virtualization can be achieved without further investment. For system administrators and application owners, this means having a single view of the world around them, even when the physical world changes. The challenge to this approach is that it remains a tall order to virtualize every conceivable piece of infrastructure and keep up with the changes in technology (VMware.com 2012). History may be on VMware's side with respect to their ability to execute on this vision, but the challenge doesn't become any easier. If anything, success brings more work to virtualize more infrastructures. For VMware, succeeding in this area would crack the holy grail of utility computing, where any unit of capacity is genuinely interchangeable with any other unit of capacity, regardless of the physical world that surrounds it. In my opinion it seems that VMware is going places that Microsoft and Citrix is not or hasn’t. VMware seems to want to take risks and make an effort to take leaps forward where the others are either afraid to or are just sitting back and waiting for someone else to do it. I believe that I would go with the risk taker here. VMware seems to be really interested in providing a truly virtualized infrastructure.
References:

Centrix.com (2012). How it Works. Retrieved from http://www.citrix.com/products/xendesktop/how-it-helps/compare.html

Microsoft.com (2012). Virtualization & Management Benefits. Retrieved from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/datacenter/virtualization-benefits.aspx Kishore, Kalidindi (2012). Virtual Desktop Information and Maintenance. Retrieved From Tolly211115VMwareView4_6PremierVsCitrixXenDesktop5Platinum

VMware.com (2012). Virtualization Technical Advantages. Retrieved From http://www.vmware.com/virtualization/advantages/robust/robust-foundation.html