Microsoft launched Hyper-V formally this week. The giant will spend more money and effort on this than anything since Windows 95 it looks like. Everyone on the planet is trying to draft on the buzz factor, though few actually get what the deal is.
How cool is it that the one independent thought leader in the middle of all of it is our own Mark Bowker. Check out the MS Virtualization home page – Bowker's quote is the only one featured (as a quote aficionado I must say it kicks ass).
I am so proud that a guy that couldn't be any more opposite of me pretty much (and rightfully so) dominates the scene in this, loud frenzied space. He is quiet, serene, intelligent, thoughtful, an actual IT guy, and nice. I'm still not sure how those qualities work in this business, but I'm glad they do. An industry loaded with self-proclaimed brilliance and marketing garf (and yes, I'm referring to myself) is no way to go thru life, son. Nice work Mark.
Well, I had a pitch from a VMWare sales person who told me (with a straight face) that they are more interested in desktop consolidation than they are in server consolidation these days because (and here's another great quote) "there are more desktops in the world than servers".
MS couldn't have picked better weather for a dramatic entrance. If VMWare is really focusing on their "growth" market of desktop virtualization at the expense of innovation in the server market, then this will be their undoing. They had a 3 year advantage in innovative technology that they can't keep with a holding pattern.
---He/She is right - it isn't so much about the desktop itself - its about the fact that each desktop represents an image. Those images represent an employee - often more than one per. Desktops/laptops are the bain of IT - help desk and support are a nightmare. If you collapse them all into the Larry Ellison 1989 vision of "thin client" that represents and awsome, all new, gigantic pile of stuff that has to be purchased for the Data Center. Microsoft doesn't (or shouldn't) care if they are the "virtualization" engine or not - they sell a ton of brand new licenses when this happens. So does every single hardware guy on the planet. This is like stock brokers - they don't care if it's up or down, they care about the transaction.
VDI is the killer movement - where everyone potentially wins. IT wins because eventually they don't deal with any desktops or any of the associated nightmares users cause. Imagine a standard build - provisioned in seconds - secure, backed up, managed all inside the data center by people who actually know that they are doing!!! Talk about "green" too - yikes. Just the system disk reduction of 1000 to 1 that is possible would justify the move - let alone the power and cooling wasted by every dope who leaves their two monitors and machine running all night and weekend. (Like me).
Microsoft is the stock broker - they are getting paid no matter what. When you buy a desktop, they get paid. When you buy a server, they get paid. Think about VDI as you literally doubling the amount of desktops - not reducing them. That's a lot of new servers, storage, networking, software and piles and piles of new opportunities for all.
Bowker figured out the VDI think a year and a half ago. I started to get it about six months ago.
VMware clearly won the server virtualization war (although to keep on winning they need to get real consumption widespread, but that's a different issue), and as big as that war is/was - the desktop virtualization game is at least 10X the size (any metric can be applied here) - and thats just to start.
So who wins when this happens? Besides MS, it has to bode well for the full spectrum providers - IBM, HP, and yes, even Sun might have a shot. Dell should bet the farm on it. Where as traditionally full stack vendors got killed when point technologies became critical areas, like storage, and networking - eventually those technologies mature to the point of good enough - and that's where we are. Good stuff, regardless.
Thanks - Steve
Posted by: open systems storage guy | September 12, 2008 at 02:35 PM