From VMware's Gerod Carfantan, a new blog vmMBA, "Exploring the Business Side of Virtualization." Here's an excerpt from his latest article: vmMBA.com: The Virtualization Adoption Lifecycle.

Level 5 - "Business Transformation [2008]

 

This is the year of Business Transformation through virtualization. 

Some organizations got a head start on Business Transformation in 2006-2007 through the uses of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Virtual Software Lifecycle Automation (VSLA) tools like Lab Manager. These tools allowed them to change the way development infrastructure or desktop services were built and managed, without transforming their production server infrastructure.  We're seeing an increased adoption of those solutions, but my focus here is on the transformation of the way production servers are architected, built, managed, and commercialized.

Another key development is the concept of "Transient VMs".  Traditional (physical) server architecture means static servers, built for a purpose, and those servers typically "stick around" for a long, long time.  A server that is powered on and placed on the network is a server that must be patched and managed.  Transient VMs are those that are created for a purpose, but then may be archived or destroyed as required. 

Examples may include test VMs (clones of production, perhaps), development environments in Lab Manager, or legacy applications in VMs that can be powered off and archived for compliance reasons.  Plus, the great thing about powered-off VMs these days is that they can be patched with VMware Update Manager (in other words, the best of both worlds: a patchable VM that doesn't need to be managed on a day-to-day basis).

A third development is the use of advanced automation with virtualization.  VMs, because of their portability and flexibility, are a much better object for automation than physical machines.  This has given rise to solutions such as Dunes VS-O (now part of VMware), which automates hundreds of workflows that normally would be performed manually.

A fourth development is the fact that organizations (both outsourcers and internal IT shops) are offering new services that use virtualization at their core.  These includes Disaster Recovery (using internal assets instead of third parties), on-demand computing, or hosted virtual desktop.  For outsourcers in particular, it means that they can get new revenue streams, without increasing their customer's overall IT spend (usually, the customer gets more revenue, and the customer reduces costs).

A combination of organizational experience, experience in the systems integrator community, and product capability has given us the "perfect storm" in 2008 for business transformation.