How does the use of virtualization technology differ by industry?

 Just yesterday, I was sitting with a group of people from different industries enjoying an interesting seafood luncheon after a morning of pleasant activities. The conversation turned to what everyone did for a living when not attending conferences. After commenting that it appeared that I attended conferences for a living, I went on to explain what the Kusnetzky Group did for its clients and a bit about my musings that are posted here, I was surprised to be peppered with questions about what virtualization technology is, how would it be deployed in the questioner's company and, if I analyzed the questions a bit, why should they care?

I presented virtualization technology as an approach to create an artificial environment that is supported by the ever-increasing performance of processors, memory, storage, networks and the like using ever more sophisticated software. In short, virtualization makes it possible to create a useful illusion. I then went on to discuss the typical goals organizations have when they acquire and then deploy (or is it deplore) various types of virtualization technology, including

• Being able to access applications and data from just about anywhere using just about any networkable device
• Being able to run applications or, in fact, full workloads without being concered about potential incompatibilities steming from different versions of operating systems, development tools or application frameworks.
• Being able to safely and securely access complex organizational networks
• Being able to access applications and data even if they were stored in a datacenter halfway around the world.
• Being able to process applications faster or support more people's work than any single reasonably priced system could manage
• Being able to continue operations even if some component failed

It was fun seeing some of the folks "get it" and start the process of finding out where to learn more about the technology, major suppliers and possible next steps.

Others seated at the table told me that they didn't know that I was so proficient at "Technish," the language of the datacenter, a language they didn't understand at all.

If you where put on the spot and asked to explain all of the different layers of technology and all of the different uses of virtualization, what would you say?