Virtualization Automation – A Proper Virtual World

Cloud Computing, Utility Computing, Bah Humbug!

December 17th, 2008

Virtualization Critical Comparison – Chapter 03

Well, boys and girls, of which there should be more girls in the information technology industry right? Christmas is upon us, and the New Year will be here faster than you can say Jack Frost. Thanksgiving is gone, Halloween is long gone, so where are we? We are in that dead space between the old and new, when all planning is up in the air, resource planning, time planning, project planning are all but done, but could change over night this time of year, here to day, gone tomorrow, is a real situation this time of year. Wonderful, but what have we done to change the world, in the information technology industry as a whole? What will we do in 2009 that will shake the foundation of a strategic planning? No, I am not consulting with the ghosts of Christmas past or Christmas present they do not understand binary computing, or even virtualization.

Sure, virtualization has changed server side computing, sure virtualization is changing desktop computing, heck, virtualization is changing cell phone computing, yes, virtual machines on cell phones, of course. But in the rush to improve computing utilization, have we missed something? We have, and we have missed it in a big, big way. Clouding or utility computing, depending on how your organization defines it, is wonderful, the SETI project proved that distributed computing, or floating processing is viable, and functional, so of course the idea of floating resources between datacenters is an easy goal to promote, no? And virtualization makes it, at least from a tactical perspective, possible, and from a strategic perspective, logical. But what did we miss? Still guessing?

No it is not application instancing per se, although I have long said that application instancing is going to be a big deal, a least a few times in this blog as well as elsewhere. No, the next big deal is operating system reduction. Gartner do you have your ears open? What? What the heck are you smoking? I am sure some are saying…You stuff a bunch of mistletoe in a pipe and smoke it? Virtualization does not reduce operating system instances, but application instancing should or does if done right. But that is not what I am saying, I am saying, operating system reduction according to type. Yes, type. How many organizations are struggling with multiple operating systems while trying to craft a cloud or utility infrastructure? Why do multiple operating systems exist? Well that is a complex question and a straight forward question? The answers are complex and straightforward as well.

Let us take the simple question first, why do multiple operating systems exist? In simple prose, if you wanted a specific feature or variant of performance, you needed the right operating system. Well, those days are gone, at least in distributing computing, there is no reason for any organization to have more than two operating systems, if that, one for servers and one for desktops, done deal. Why? Simple, it is not worth the resources and expense to maintain a multiple operating system scope and scale engineering and operational support models for each operating system. You can do everything on every operating system within common reason today, the performance differences are disappearing for must applications. Virtualization has encouraged this, by further abstraction of the hardware. After reducing the total number of servers, and reducing the total number of operating systems, increasing the utilization curve, what is a big cost issue? Personnel, yes, even in these hard economic times…I heard the word depression echoing in the vast, empty, cube spaces of corporate America, no? It does not make sense to have a UNIX team, a Linux team, and a Windows team, now does it? Never mind that many large enterprise firms have several different variants of UNIX or Linux and even Windows running of very long periods of time? Why does it take so long to certify solutions? Why do cross operating system solutions fail to work well? You avoid these issues, when you eliminate operating system types. Imagine if you had one and only one engineering team focused the one operating system? That would save personnel expense, because yes fewer persons, but more important, less time to get to solutions to your clients, since only one platform is focused on, be it Solaris, Red Hat, or Windows 2008, to be specific via example.

Let us now tackle the complex question, how many organizations are struggling with cloud or utility computing when multiple operating systems are available or viable in the enterprise of the organization? Cross operating system solutions never do well consistently across all operating systems, in fact, they often lose focus and support all operating systems according to lowest common denominator. Why? Oh, it would be easy to say political turf, right? And that is actually true to some degree. There is absolutely no synergistic effect when you are trying to be all things to all platforms. At some point someone at the top has to make a hard decision and stick to it. This is both true for the developer of a solution and the users of said solution. But the greater cause is avoidance of pain, it is much easier to do what has always been done, because UNIX or Linux or Windows has always been there, it is easier not to force change.

Even virtualization is nothing new, just a slight improvement on the original problem, supportability and utilization. Virtualization has improved utilization, but made supportability worse, or should I say more complex? Absolutely everything in the information technology scope is complex, more complex than it needs to be. Why? Because marketing loves new features, and suckers, I mean upper management types find it every easy to fall in love with a specific concept or feature that makes a quick bonus, then standing up for a long term, far more superior objective, which should be more profitable years down the road, but then again, no high end of year bonus? Tell me I am not right? Has the number of vendors demanding to present new toys to your engineering group increased or decreased over the last year? I for one, have never seen so much junk, yes, junk, solutions flood into by electronic mail, snail mail, or even the door to my office, because there is a hard blitz on to chase the latest new toy. When did early adoption become strategic planning? And of course absolutely every new toy must be implemented in less than 12 months, or else.

We need to de-complex the computing infrastructure in order to create a new cloud or utility computing model that will give us long term, or more than 5 years is what I call long term, and significant strategic benefit. The first step to that goal, is don’t implement every operating system in the cloud. And if not implemented in the cloud, let those orphaned operating systems decline, and disappear. Until this is done, cloud or utility computing will have a flawed foundation, a weak point, that will drive up cost and complexity, which is not acceptable. Cloud or utility computing must be easier than ever before, must be leaner than ever before, it can not survive the silo effect of conflicting operating system goals, objectives and needs. Cloud or utility computing should be monolithic or it will just fail to live up to even modest expectations. So, until the number of operating systems up for consideration in your cloud or utility model is reduced, I say, bah humbug. Oh, and the ghost of Christmas future, it, agrees with me…Ha! So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Personal note…To all that read this blog, including those that have agreed, disagreed, and stated such in comment or reply to this blog; I wish you all happy holidays for 2008 and best wishes for 2009. I hope that you have enjoyed this blog, and will continue to enjoy it next year.

Entry Filed under: A Proper Virtual World