Virtualization Mission Creep?
A position paper, Mission Creep: Open Source Virtualization Usage Models Proliferate was pointed out to me yesterday afternoon. The paper appeared to equate virtualization with the use of virtual machine technology rather than looking broadly at topic. It indicates that people adopt virtualization largely to consolidate existing application environments in order to either reduce costs or avoid costs. It also points out that once orgranizations start down that path they soon discover that virtual machine software can be the foundation of a more agile computing environment as well. While this is fine as far as it goes, it really doesn't go far enough.
The post Sorting out the different layers of virtualizationlays out a broad model that is helpful in understanding the full scope virtualization technologies available today. Most of that technology is never mentioned in the position paper. Nor are the majority of the goals organizations mention for embarking on the journey to a more virtualized environments in the first place.
In the post Breaking through the virtualization confusion, executives typically mention several goals that didn't show up in this paper, including the following:
- Consolidation/Cost Saving/Cost Avoidance
- Performance
- Scalability
- Agility/Rapid Provisioning/Orchestration
- Availability/reliability
- Unified management domain
Since the paper was authored by Red Hat's Emerging Technology Group and was presented on Red Hat's Website, the omissions lead me to the assessment that Red Hat itself could be working with a rather narrow view of virtualization technology.
What do you think? Is there evidence that would shine some light on what Red Hat is thinking in this area?