F5

The story hasn't been told all too well, but the parts fit perfectly.

F5 is the king of "useful virtualization" for IT in a Web 2.0/SOA world. Hear me out.

F5 has made a living by doing intelligent web load balancing – virtualizing web servers to the outside world in order to dynamically optimize performance and eliminate any downstream effects of failure. From there a web server – which may be in itself virtual (VMware, VI, Citrix, etc.) might like to speak to an application. F5 also load balances/virtualizes Application environments. The web server talks to the app server via the F5 virtualization layer. VMware can make one physical server look like 98. F5 can apparently make 98 physical servers look like 1. That's killer.

The network is virtual by design – it's IP. The missing piece of the pie was the data layer – which is exactly why they bought Acopia and exactly why it's brilliant. Now from the first instant a web request comes in all the way to the file sitting on some disk the entire stack can be dynamically virtualized and optimized. As you add lower level virtualization to the components under the higher level F5 architecture, you can start to draw a picture of exactly how life is supposed to be.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but this was an epiphany for me. Plus, the CEO is a Scotsman, and lord knows this business could use a few more of them if you ask me. IT could use a bit more FREEDOM! Either that or blue face paint and kilts.