FASTtalk July 2008
It seems like everyone is talking about virtualisation. Those
with a history in the IBM mainframe world will suggest they’ve seen
it all before, and indeed there are parallels when it comes to
creating effective licensing structures.
But like ITIL, which we explored last
quarter, virtualisation has the potential to transform the way many
organisations utilise software resources. IT decision makers agree:
according to the Information Age 2008 Annual Effective IT Survey
over 85 per cent of those that have adopted virtualisation
technology in the last 12 months are convinced of its
effectiveness.
- What are the real issues behind virtualisation?
- What are the different types of virtualisation?
- How should it be introduced, managed and monitored?
- What are the potential pitfalls? And how and when will an
effective licensing structure evolve?
These were the questions raised at the recent FASTtalk
Roundtable discussion.
A new industry paradigm
It is easy to suggest that it is the green issue that has swept
virtualisation onto the ‘must tackle it’ agenda of every
organisation. Certainly the green agenda – and the potential to
save power within the data centre – has been a catalyst. But there
are other reasons: an increasing demand for fast deployment and
resilience, compliance, security, growing infrastructure
complexity, mushrooming energy prices, and limits on power
availability.
A measure of virtualisation’s importance is that it is now on
the Finance Director’s radar screen and also featured in the
Dilbert cartoon strip, a clear signal that an issue has hit home.
There are a number of ways to virtualise: Server (hardware)
Virtualisation, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), and
Application Virtualisation.
Whichever kind of virtualisation is being considered, one of the
foremost thinkers on virtualisation, Ian Osborne from Intellect
believes its take-up is the result of a perfect storm. "I have been
involved with this technology and Grid Computing for three years.
Virtualisation is undoubtedly collapsing the amount of hardware
installed and it has changed the landscape for the IT Director.
It’s not fundamentally different from the old IBM 370 mainframe,
but there is no doubt that it is changing the industry.
Virtualisation has disrupted the accepted link between software and
hardware kit, and what that means is we now need to find new ways
of software licensing. I know the software industry has been
looking at this and is debating how a licensing process might work.
In some ways, the industry is moving ahead with virtualisation at
one level and struggling at another.”
Getting to grips with virtualisation
Tips for virtualisation success
At the end of the roundtable, the participants came up with the
following advice for users and vendors trying to get to grips with
virtualisation:
- Virtualisation or not, it’s still
necessary to stick to good IT management principles
- Both vendors and users will have to make
some concessions on licensing
- Getting towards a concept of ‘value’
would be useful
- Think of the better deployment benefits
in terms of support staff that virtualisation offers
- Avoid the Finance Director’s ‘there’s a
truckload of savings here’ thinking
Martyn Hobbs, asset management specialist at Symantec says his
company finds itself in an interesting position on virtualisation.
“If we look at ourselves as the fourth largest software company, we
are concerned about people legitimately using our software, and we
now find ourselves in a poacher turned gamekeeper situation, seeing
things as a software provider, understanding the issues of The
Federation Against Software Theft (The Federation) and seeing it
from our customers’ view as well.”
Mark Cresswell, CEO of Scalable Software says that when it comes
to finding the right model of licensing for virtualisation, there
is no need to reinvent the wheel. “It took IBM 20 years to figure
out what was the right licensing model for the 370, and ultimately
it was based on usage. IBM couldn’t have come up with that in
isolation; it came from some bloody battles with customers.
I’d say we should probably adopt that model again because
ultimately it’s the same buyers. It’s all been done before, and I
sense a certain inevitability about it. There is a lot of scope for
abuse on both sides of the fence with virtualisation. ‘Only 300
using it? But you’ve got 3000 that could.’ You’ve got to be able to
monitor usage to make it work.”
Lee Schofield, director of alliances at Trustmarque agrees, but
warns that licensing models will need to cater for the subtleties
of usage. “It has to be fair for the customer. If you are using a
server from a third party, and just using 15 minutes in a monthly
pay scheme, you could pay the same as someone using it every hour,
every day under the same scheme. And if you’re a service provider,
selling the service on to the customer, it is going to get
very
complicated.”
One of the problems in take-up has been the lack of a
co-ordinated response to virtualisation from the vendors. Gavin
Hobbs, supplier manager of FAST customer Royal and Sun
Alliance has been investigating how it can adopt virtualisation,
and found itself getting a less than encouraging response. “We can
see some cost savings in less ‘tin’ and a smaller footprint from
virtualisation. So 18 months ago we had a conversation with a large
database company, but they told us they didn’t want to know about
virtualisation.”
Phil Heap, of FAST accepts that users need clarity from vendors,
but warns that they must take actions to help themselves as well.
“In many ways, the position is the same as we have now, but with
another layer on top. People will just have to keep track of what
they’ve got even more effectively than they do now, because these
things are so movable and flexible. You’ve got to dig into it,
understand it and see if you can benefit from it. Yes, the licence
link with hardware has gone and there is no doubt that we will need
to consult with suppliers and get an effective plan in place.”
Understanding the benefits
Analysts Dennis Szubert from Quocirca and David Norfolk from
Bloor Research both see serious benefits from virtualisation,
including more effective management and disaster recovery, and even
a greater role for user groups, remembering the effectiveness of
the old IBM Mainframe User Group, and more recently, the Oracle
User Group.
"Virtualisation is like a tide out there coursing through the
industry, though I’d agree that licensing isn’t one of the
benefits,” says Szubert. “By investing in this technology, firstly
in a development and test base before moving into production, you
can get a lot of benefits. It is still very early days though: less
than 10 per cent of servers are virtualised and it’s less than 1
per cent for desktops. The benefits? You get space and hardware
savings, and you need less power, and less cooling. For example,
John Lewis has saved itself having to build a new data centre by
virtualising.
There is a management benefit too. Instead of taking a day to
duplicate a server, you can do it in 10 minutes. It becomes so easy
to create another server. In fact, it can become too easy. There
are benefits in disaster recovery too. The first people going
through virtualisation will be the industries that need a lot of
control on security e.g. financial services and where there is a
lot of government regulation.”
Norfolk concurs. “My feeling is that virtualisation is the
obvious way to go. I do think there is a role for user groups when
it comes to licensing,” adds Norfolk. “My impression is that Oracle
listens to the Oracle User Group and it appears to be a very even
relationship.”
Avoiding the flashing lights
Although many organisations are now looking into ways of using
virtualisation, there is a risk that organisations are already
adopting it for the wrong reasons – for example, the Finance
Director seeing virtualisation as a way to ‘save a truckload of
money’ – or are falling into bad practices, with a breakdown in
security a considerable risk. “There is a problem if you’re going
to approach this with an ‘I’m only going to save licence fees
attitude.’ Only government departments should be thinking in that
way,” says Osborne.
Norfolk agrees that some organisations may already be treating
virtualisation too lightly. “I think that people who think that
virtualisation is going to be financially easy are going to get a
real shock when they find they’re spending the same millions of
dollars and being billed twice over.”
Symantec’s Martyn Hobbs has already seen the drawbacks of
virtualisation first-hand with some customers. “Is it a more secure
environment? No. I recently spoke to a developer at one customer
and he suggested Software Asset Management was holding them back. I
asked him if it was right for a developer to create 20 machines in
a virtual environment. One of the issues that we have to focus on
with virtualisation is the management side. Process, procedure and
policy are critical. We mustn’t get distracted by the flashing
lights of the virtual environment,” says Hobbs. “As usual, it
comes down to a people issue. There is that famous quote, ‘If you
can’t change the people, change the people’. You have to get
developers to use a standard image. It’s very much like adopting
ITIL to manage people, processes and technology. Managing people is
risky and you may upset them. Buying technology is much more
attractive and it doesn’t talk back to you.”
Gavin Hobbs from Royal and Sun Alliance insists that his
organisation is certainly not considering virtualisation as a means
of reducing licence fees. And he hopes vendors do not see
virtualisation as a means to increase them. “We’re not looking to
save money or claw licensing fees back from Microsoft or Oracle.
But equally we’re trying to make sure the vendors don’t drive their
own increase around virtualisation through opportunistic practices.
We don’t want to set up a cottage industry around it.”
There will be key benefits when it comes to running
applications. Adrian Walmsley from the British Computer Society
says one of the clear benefits in using virtualisation under VMWare
is the flexibility in using older applications. “I’ve got XP under
VMWare Fusion on a MacBook and it’s running extremely reliably.
I’ve got applications still on Windows 98, and you can run them
virtually under VMWare. If you have old applications, but don’t
want to run old hardware, just stick them on an image. There are
always going to be some old applications around. Everybody buys
into virtualisation, and the only thing that’s holding it up is the
licensing. The challenge has always been that you can’t go and
audit it.”
The Federation’s Chief Executive John Lovelock agrees, and
insists that work is taking place to move on licensing for
virtualisation. “What we’re attempting to do through The Federation
is draw in our 100 software publishing Members. We want to work
with them and Intellect to better understand what’s going on.
Vendors and users shouldn’t be enemies and we need to bring them
together. Vendors will probably have to make some concessions. That
is the way forward.” Bloor Research’s David Norfolk agrees, but
insists that it shouldn’t be a one-way street. “Users will have to
make some concessions too. That means adopting usage and best
practice to make it workable.”
Looking ahead to a virtualised world
Despite the success of VMWare and IT Directors’ awareness of
virtualisation, it is still early days in terms of a picture of
where widespread virtualisation will lead us. Trustmarque’s Lee
Schofield believes that, like conversation at the roundtable, a
discussion around virtualisation can be a wide-ranging one. “We
started off talking about servers, then desktops, and onto
applications. I believe application virtualisation is the really
exciting part and is probably what will cause all the vendors the
biggest headache.”
Osborne though has some sympathy for the vendors. “Microsoft has
certainly been trying to innovate in this space and at the same
time is trying to ensure it doesn’t hamper itself. Users too will
have to be careful. I heard of one organisation that after
virtualising, now has twice as many servers as it did originally
because staff have been bypassing corporate policies and
procedures. It still comes down to good IT management.”
The participants of the FASTtalk Roundtable included Ian Osborne
from Intellect, Phil Heap from FAST Limited, The Federation Against
Software Theft, Federation Members Scalable Software, Trustmarque
and Symantec, the British Computer Society, industry analysts and
FAST Corporate Member Royal and Sun Alliance..
