Virtualization Automation – A Proper Virtual World

Warning! Virtualization Is Addictive To Management

July 25th, 2007

Know What Virtualization Is, But What Is Next? – Chapter 01

Now some of you are going to wonder about the title of this chapter. I can hear now, some of you saying… well duh. But for those that have some virtualization up and running, maybe in a lab, maybe even in production? These hapless souls may not realize that they have just introduced a drug, no a virus, that takes over technical infrastructure management from top to bottom, and drives normal humans into hardware consolidation crazed mindless zombies. Don’t believe me? Give your successful virtualization implementation another six months, long enough that the positive results to show up in the financial analysis for the year end, and it will happen. It has already happened. I have seen it, I have lived though it, and I know operational teams that are feeling the effects of it.

This is a classic example of too much of a good thing is perceived as being even better. What? Wait? Most of you are saying… Hey, bozo you said that wrong. No, in point of fact, I said it correctly. Consider this, you have implemented virtualization via Xen, VMware, or cough Microsoft Virtual Server, or Containers via AIX micro-partitions, Solaris, or whatever, if not both variants, hypervisor and non-hypervisor utilization methods.  Management is happy, total cost avoidance is in the millions, providing your scale is that big. Now what? This is when the virus has its opportunity to strike its insanity attack, and what I call the denial of logic symptoms take effect.

From this point onwards, your management is no longer those wonderful exhibits of kind nurturing entities, but changed some how, some thing more grey than black, but still repeating over and over… what can we virtualize next… what can we virtualize next. I woke in the middle of the early morning, rain is hammering down on the roof and blanketing the windows with vague ghostly shapes, in a cold room with no covers on the bed, pillows on the opposite side of the room, with the words of my boss echoing between my ears… what can we virtualize next, what can we virtualize next! Even the Dachshunds have left the room, to escape my tortured screaming reply… Nothing, nothing, some one save me… nothing! My mournful, no sorrowful, cries are left unanswered. Why do I feel like Neo trapped in the Matrix? Is that real air I am breathing?

You think this can not happen to you? Yeah right. Once you have done all the obvious virtualization migrations via physical-to-virtual (P2V), completely revamped your project review committee for purchase process to go virtual and only on hardware when you have no other choice, forced your vendors and in-house developers to code, test, certify and validate only on virtual machines, and only then, searched the world for now additional low hanging fruit candidates for virtualization in your company that project managers or clients declared could never be virtualized? Your management will go virtually insane, pun intended, demanding that there are still candidates for virtualization, there has to be, some where, some how, some why… period. Nothing you can say will appease this virus induced desire to continue to virtualization. After all, until you are 100% virtualized, the job is not done. You have not twisted the last few cents out of the total-cost-of-ownership model via virtualization.

You still think I am kidding? Well, Duh… Not!

Entry Filed under: A Proper Virtual World