GRC Journal - (Page 88) TEACH AN OLD DOG NEw TRICKS mArk mArGeviCiUS, vice President and research Director, Gartner, inc., says adoption of virtualization is steadily growing as users are trying to teach themselves how to cope with the unfamiliar architecture. How would you define “virtualization”? Virtualization is the ability to have services, whether they be hardware or software, delivered in a way that is not tied to any given hardware or software solution. What this really means is that you can take applications and deliver them, independent of other applications and operating systems. Virtualization removes the barriers that are typically hardwired between software and hardware, and it de-couples those interdependencies. Virtualization allows us to deliver hardware solutions over software through a VM, for example, or delivering software independent of other software, where normally they wouldn’t be allowed. What would you say are the top key competitive business advantages to widespread virtualization adoption at the enterprise level? First: there is greater density. Second: I can consolidate servers into datacenters and also get greater density on those servers. So, there are fewer servers, and the servers that they do use are more filled. Third: I can actually isolate individual instances of servers, storage, applications, operating systems, etc., from themselves. That is of high value to many customers we speak to, because isolation really helps them with the simplification of a given environment. Fourth: the time to deliver is much quicker – particularly in the server environment where it used to be that in order to provision a new server within an environment, you actually had to fix your hardware; get it tested; get it configured; get it installed; get it operating; and then you can run it in your production. This could all literally take weeks or months to do, depending on your organization. With virtual servers, for example, you can easily provision a new server through software – and you can be up and running in literally less than an hour. These are all reasons why customers are telling us that virtualization is of high value. 50 Business Trends Quarterly Technology Solutions. Business Strategy.
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