The Future of Virtualization: Emerging trends and the evolving vendor landscape

Report Description:

The Future of Virtualization report examines one of the biggest trends in recent IT history: virtualization. The promise of virtualization technology – whether applied to the server, storage, client/desktop, application or network – is to increase capacity, utilize resources more effectively and reduce costs. It also fits neatly with many organizations’ green IT strategies, with its promise to increase utilization of existing assets and eliminate the demand for more energy-guzzling hardware resources.
Virtualization is not only a hot topic but also a rapidly evolving area of the IT sector. Despite a tough macroeconomic climate, there is evidence that organizations are willing to invest in virtualization technologies, making it of great interest to incumbent vendors and those eyeing up the future market opportunity.

This report is of interest to any supplier of IT products and services, whether selling direct or through a channel of resellers. This group includes virtualization vendors, hardware vendors, software vendors, open source specialists, system management providers, service providers, data centers, internet-based businesses such as Amazon offering in-cloud applications, value-added resellers and managed network service providers.

Key features of this report

• Insight into the virtualization market opportunity – for example, desktop and application virtualization represent the next growth opportunities, now the server and storage virtualization markets are established
• Market forecasts and cost saving breakdowns
• Analysis of the vendor landscape and exploration of the potential challenges / opportunities ahead for the main players
• Recommended vendor actions
• Case studies of virtualization in action

Scope of this report

• Identify market drivers and future industry ‘sweet spots’
• Refine sales and marketing campaigns to educate end users about the benefits of virtualization and allay any concerns they may have with the technology
• In-depth analysis of emerging trends in the virtualization market
• Identify the main players in the virtualization market
• See evidence of virtualization in action through real-life case studies
• Identify new market opportunities (e.g. SMBs)

Key market issues

Virtualization is an old technology brought into the 21st-century: Virtualization has been available on the mainframe since the 1960s. The current resurgence in virtualization is brought about by the fact that today’s hardware provides significantly more horsepower than is needed by the applications that it runs, so CPU utilization rates are at an all-time low.
Virtualization doesn’t just improve operational efficiencies: Many organizations initially adopt IT virtualization in order to save costs through server consolidation, but then realise that other benefits are possible when operating with a virtualized infrastructure, and so IT virtualization then becomes a strategic part of the overall IT plan.
Desktop and application streaming will become key components in the way most IT service providers deliver virtual desktops and applications to end users. The technology is not fully mature or robust, however, and service providers and customers shouldn’t expect widespread use before 2010.
Network virtualization: The I/O throughput of virtualized systems is one aspect of IT virtualization that will improve significantly over the next two years, as software products gain assistance from developments at the chip and server bus level.
Cloud computing: It’s early days for the delivery of ‘Desktop as a Service’ from the public cloud, but already Tier 1 IT services vendors are anticipating interest from large enterprises and looking at ways they can integrate cloud-based services (both public and private) into their own managed services offerings.
Competitive landscape: VMware is the most successful vendor in the enterprise server virtualization market today. VMware – like its rivals – is building the management tools that are needed to handle virtual servers. Its message in more recent years has been about cloud computing. Microsoft, however, represents a considerable threat: its IT virtualization strategy is starting to come together and the company now holds a strong enough hand to be considered a player in the game.

Key findings of this report

• Virtualization has significant cost benefits for organizations: server consolidation can yield a saving of £2 million over three years for an organization running 250 dual-core servers; and a power saving in the order of £78,000 per 1,000 PCs per year can be realized by moving from a full desktop PCs infrastructure to a server-hosted desktop virtualization solution.
• The market for virtualization management solutions will be the most innovative and, potentially, lucrative in the near future.
• Financial analysts estimate the market for IT virtualization could be worth over $19 billion.
• As many as 16 million desktops could be virtualized by 2011.
• The virtualization infrastructure management (VIM) market is undoubtedly going to be the most lucrative aspect of IT virtualization in the longer term, and so is perhaps the most dynamic and active part of the virtualization scene.
• Demand for some inclusion of cloud services or proof-of-concept will be a part of 10 per cent to 15 per cent of enterprise requests for desktop services by 2012.

Key questions answered

• What’s driving demand for virtualization within organizations?
• What are the barriers to widespread take-up?
• Which are the fastest growing segments of the virtualization market?
• Which are the largest?
• Who are the leading vendors? Which vendor represents the biggest competitive threat?
• How will the market for virtualization develop in the future?
• How big is the IT virtualization market opportunity?

Table of Contents

• The Future of Virtualization

Executive summary 10

• Behind the hype of virtualization 10
• Emerging trends in server and storage virtualization 11
• Emerging trends in client / desktop virtualization 12
• Emerging trends in application virtualization 13
• Emerging trends in network virtualization 14
• Future roadmap for virtualization 15
• Pitfalls to virtualization 16
• Vendor landscape 17

Chapter 1 Introduction 20

• What is this report about? 20
• Who is this report for? 21

Chapter 2 Behind the hype of virtualization 24

• Summary 24
• Introduction 25
• Defining virtualization 25
• Why virtualization is more than a buzzword 26
• The financial benefits 28
• Strategic role for virtualization 30
• Developments in the virtualization market 31
• Storage virtualization 31
• Server virtualization 31
• Client/desktop virtualization 31
• Application virtualization 33
• Network virtualization 34
• Virtualization management 34
• Market outlook 35
• Commoditization enters the virtualization market 36
• Market challenges 38
• Vendor actions 39

Chapter 3 Emerging trends in server and storage virtualization 42

• Summary 42
• Introduction 43
• Server virtualization 43
• The business case 43
• How it works 44
• Hypervisors 45
• Hosted virtualization 46
• Emerging trends in server virtualization 48
• The time is ripe to move from testing to virtualization 48
• Managing virtualized server environments 48
• High-performance server virtualization 51
• Expect more partnerships between emulation and blade centers 51
• Microsoft makes its entrance 53
• The future for Linux vendors 54
• Storage virtualization 55
• The business case 55
• Emerging trends in storage virtualization 58
• A maturing market 58
• New business drivers 58
• Demand grows for file-based virtualization 59
• Server virtualization and iSCSI work hand in hand 60
• Server and storage virtualization increasingly viewed as complementary technologies 61

Chapter 4 Emerging trends in client/desktop virtualization 66

• Summary 66
• The business case 67
• Market development 69
• As many as 16 million desktops could be virtualized by 2011 70
• The limitations of thin clients 70
• HVD 71
• Limitations of HVD 72
• Virtualizing the desktop and application delivery has different challenges to server and storage virtualization 73
• Emerging trends in client/desktop virtualization 74
• VDI now a common accepted term for centralized server-based desktop virtualization 74
• Combining the benefits of server and desktop virtualization 74
• The emergence of the Bring Your Own Computer model 76
• Developments in storage and image optimization could increase take-up of VDI 77
• Desktop as a service: an alternative to in-house VDI? 78
• CIOs should investigate the new generation of desktop virtualization software tools 78
• There will be no one set desktop PC model in the future 79
• The limitations of VDI 80
• VDI isn’t necessarily suited to large-scale deployments 81
• VDI is well suited to mid-market companies 82

Chapter 5 Emerging trends in application virtualization 84

• Summary 84
• The business case 85
• Application virtualization 87
• Market development 89
• The benefits of application virtualization 90
• Application virtualization in action: case studies 92
• Flexible application delivery at Fontys University 92
• Increasing processing capacity for complex applications at BNP Paribas 93
• Emerging trends in application virtualization 95
• Application virtualization is moving into the mainstream 95
• Interest in application virtualization amongst vendors heats up 95
• Combining desktop and application virtualization 96
• Application virtualization inside presentation virtualization 96
• The limitations of application virtualization 97

Chapter 6 Emerging trends in network virtualization 100

• Summary 100
• The business case 101
• Virtual private networking (VPN) 101
• Virtual LAN technologies 102
• Network virtualization 103
• Market development 105
• Network virtualization in action: case studies 106
• Creating a virtual network infrastructure at Zurich Airport 106
• Emerging trends in network virtualization 107
• Network and I/O virtualization still a nascent area of development 107
• More network virtualization vendors ‘standardize’ their offering 108
• The network of the future: an integrated platform 108

Chapter 7 Future roadmap for virtualization 112

• Summary 112
• Introduction 113
• Back-up and disaster recovery 113
• Automating virtualization management 116
• The SMB opportunity 119
• Cloud computing 121
• Cloud computing and virtualization 122
• Opening the market to shared services 123
• Chapter 8 Pitfalls to virtualization 126
• Summary 126
• Introduction 127
• The pitfalls 127
• Server sprawl 128
• Tackling server sprawl 131
• Potential conflicts from resource sharing 132
• Software provisioning 133
• Non-standardization of protocols, formats, and programming interfaces 133
• Software licensing and auditing 134
• Users test the virtualization waters 135
• Security 135
• Virtual security 136
• Securing the virtual network 137
• Securing virtual network appliances 137
• New risks introduced by virtualization 138
• Security steps for virtualized server environments 139
• Use a bare metal hypervisor for live system deployment 139
• Securing each virtual machine 139
• Configuration and change control 140
• Virtual machine templates 141
• Access control 141
• Secure idle virtual machines 142
• Secure virtualized clients 142
• Configuration and audit management 142
• Protecting stored VM images 143
• Securing mobile devices 143

Chapter 9 The competitive vendor landscape 146

• Summary 146
• Introduction 147
• Server virtualization vendors 147
• Storage virtualization vendors 147
• Desktop virtualization vendors 148
• Application virtualization vendors 148
• Network virtualization vendors 148
• Vendor strategies 149
• Major players 149
• VMware 149
• Microsoft 155
• Citrix 158
• Citrix and Microsoft 161
• System management players 162
• Sun Microsystems 162
• BMC 164
• CA 164
• HP 166
• IBM 167
• Cisco Systems 169
• Other vendors 173
• Red Hat 173
• Oracle 174
• Symantec 175
• Index 177

List of Figures

• Figure 2.1: Virtualization promises to increase resource utilization 26
• Figure 2.2: Virtualization adoption 36
• Figure 3.3: Hypervisors enable server virtualization 46
• Figure 4.4: How users access a virtual desktop 72
• Figure 5.5: How application virtualization works 87
• Figure 6.6: Virtual networking – VMware ESX Server 104
• Figure 7.7: Virtualization offers low cost disaster recovery 114
• Figure 7.8: A conceptual model of cloud computing 121
• Figure 8.9: Physical server sprawl presents a challenge to businesses 129
• Figure 8.10: Securing each virtual machine - VMsafe 140
• Figure 9.11: VMware’s virtual infrastructure 150
• Figure 9.12: VMware squares up to Microsoft 154
• Figure 9.13: CA survey of large enterprises – virtual server management needs are not being met 165
• Figure 9.14: System management players summary 172

List of Tables

• Table 2.1: A summary of the benefits of virtualization 27
• Table 4.2: The potential savings 69
• Table 5.3: Application problems plague organizations 86