Virtuozzo gets praised by analysts

First, IDC (http://www.swsoft.com/en/news/id,11213) recognized Virtuozzo as the fastest-growing among all vendors — 98 percent — in the super hot server virtualization market.

Now, Gartner Group, in the report “Predicts 2007: Brace Yourself for the Next Wave of Server Technology,” says:

“By 2010, mainstream virtualization technology will embrace I/O virtualization, breaking the traditional bonds between physical servers, network switches and storage area network (SAN) switches; by 2010, shared operating system (OS) virtualization will become mainstream.”

You can read the news release (http://www.swsoft.com/en/news/id,11527) and go here (http://www.swsoft.com/en/virtuozzo/gartnerreport06/) to view the Gartner Group report.

Vote for Virtuozzo

We encourage everyone to go to Enterprise Open Source Magazine (http://linux.sys-con.com/general/readerschoice.htm) to participate in the Reader’s Choice awards. There are about a dozen categories that include Best Virtualization Solution, Best Open Source Product, and Best Linux Distribution. It will take you about 10 minutes to register and vote and you’ll also be qualified to receive Enterprise Open Source Magazine. Virtuozzo is included in the Best Virtualization Solution category and the OpenVZ project is listed in the Best Open Source category. This awards competition reflects the input of users, so go to the site to make sure your voice is heard.

Thanks in advance and Merry Christmas!

Which OS will matter?

A few weeks ago, TechTarget‘s Server Virtualization published this interview with Diane Greene titled “The operating system should not matter”. After reading it there is very little doubt that VMware has decided to take on Microsoft and provide an alternative platform. This Infoworld article simply calls VMware an OS – “The lab is built mainly on three OSes. Four, if you count VMware.”

Personally, I think that this hill is too steep for VMware. Here are a few thoughts on this:

1.    VMware is a very serious threat to the currently dominant Windows and Linux platforms. By introducing a virtualization dimension, VMware has been able to clearly articulate the value proposition for its platform without having to compete with Windows or Linux feature-by-feature.

2.    VMware will try to take over hardware resource management and infrastructure services provided by the OS – CPU scheduling, memory management, perhaps even the file system. Then, VMware will try to introduce some proprietary APIs that provide access to advanced features and ensure that customers are locked-in to the VMware platform.

3.    However, the value of the OS as a platform is much more than a hardware resource manager and basic system services – it includes middleware, support from ISVs and OEMs. In short, there is a huge ecosystem around the current platform and it’ll be very hard to build another one.

4.    Microsoft and Linux vendors must win - they have no other choice. To do so, they need to change the game back on VMware and embrace the entire spectrum of virtualization technologies – hardware, OS-level, application-level and integrate them into their platforms so that customers can use whatever technology is best for them, instead of trying to stretch VMware to solve all problems.

Share your thoughts with me!