A: I have been working with virtualisation when it wasn’t a buzzword. Virtualisation, in my opinion, still masks the underlying problem that the CIO/CTO does not understand. We traded physical server sprawl for virtual server sprawl all the while reducing our power requirements to prolong the life of our data centres and reduce soft costs that I don’t think anyone is really paying attention to or understands how to show the cost savings without buying yet another infrastructure component “managed KVM/PDU’s” and the software that goes with it.

In my opinion, the virtualisation is yet to come of age – for instance, the software application requirements haven’t changed from the Windows 9x days. Then again you have to deal with the outdated mindset of application owners who say, “I don’t want VMware in my sand-box”. These issues have led to slower adoption. The software vendors still don’t fully support virtualisation without a “bare-metal” restore clause. It just goes to show that major application software players have to drive harder to understand and “adapt” to the new requirements.

No one has addressed the fundamental issue that if we don’t address the applications, and how they are deployed into production and break the cycle of “I need another server for my app, virtual or not” we can’t address the problem. In a few years we will have the same problem we have now, with the same number of servers we started with and a much bigger issue of managing 1000’s of virtual machines on top of it.  It is pure mismanagement - plain and simple - and the CIO/CTOs won’t bring the infrastructure and application leadership together and address the “root cause”. Call it politics, ignorance, or just oversight, the senior IT leadership has to step up and talk about the elephant in the room or else it “will not change.” I make no apologies for this statement and I simply don’t understand why it has gone unchecked for so long.  

Virtualisation also eats up an unbelievable amount of SAN storage. The SAN/NAS arrays in our companies are two to three times what they should be. They are impacting the amount of data backed up downstream and ultimately the recovery costs. It is pure mismanagement of data.  Again, senior leadership has to bring the infrastructure, database, and application teams together and “clean-up” the data.

CIOs have to see the big picture and get a CTO who sees the bigger picture and has vast experience in all the IT disciplines and not just one area. CIOs can't afford to ignore the untapped potential of consolidating applications.

A: Virtualisation at the storage (SAN/NAS) level makes sense. In my opinion storage period is so badly mismanaged that it grows out of control. Once this happens it affects a lot of things down stream like backups, DR, replication, etc. which in turn increases operating expense in those areas.  By addressing the SAN/NAS data requirements, CIOs can save up to four times across the enterprise.

Storage virtualisation only helps to offset the data sprawl. Companies need data to increase revenues but we need to be smarter. recommend virtualisation of storage because it is relatively inexpensive but it should be used as a tool to create an ROI model. The CIO should be able to show that he is going to cut 10 percent of the SAN/NAS purchases every year as a result or that the company is going to be smarter about data storage needs by buying less expensive SATA disks arrays.

A: While buying storage (especially SAN and high-end NAS arrays) CIOs need to understand that once you make a deal you are stuck unless you have a very understanding business and talented IT department to allow you to do storage migrations. When buying storage, you pay maintenance on the disks as well as the array and software. However, make sure that all maintenance is rolled forward and coterminous with the original SAN purchase because when you get your final expense bill on maintenance, it is going to be cheaper to buy the next “fastest” storage array rather than pay the expense.

A: This is a relative question and is based on your business need. EMC and HDS are on top for a reason and are the Ferrari’s of the SAN world. Everyone else resells everyone else. EMC is making huge strides with VMAX and HDS has always had a great product and generally pulled ahead in ease of management and support. IBM is pulling hard to get back into the spotlight with the new IBM “XIV” SAN designed by the maker of the EMC DMX array.  This looks very promising for ease of management and support. One thing that is sure is that CIOs need more visibility in the storage and HDS/IBM are doing this.

A: There should be better management, plain and simple. Give IT a way to better manage and support the SAN and continue the support with the latest network virtualisation features. What Cisco is offering in the Nexus platform is a great example.  

I hope that CIOs will see the potential of virtualising their application and services. Think about it. If you were to just consolidate your services onto a single Windows server you would maximize the use of the server, defer buying virtualisation software and maintenance and simplify your management of services and support.