Virtualisation, Automation and Cloud… where are we today?

[Update: 19 June 2009] Reports are coming out that Oracle is terminating Virtual Iron as a product, which changes things somewhat. How this affects the potential changes to the virtualisation market (especially for large enterprises) time will tell.

So here we are half way through 2009, virtualisation (virtualization) and cloud computing are hot, there are new services, new blogs, new companies popping up everyday and the hype is intolerable! So we thought we’d take a look at the state of play and summarise where we see automation, Virtualisation and Cloud.

Virtualisation:

There are two big names, and some close seconds. VMware continues to be the big name in virtualisation, despite the competition breathing down it’s back and big changes internally within management etc. Xen is the other big name to consider. Now part of Citrix Xen has been putting pressure on VMware for sometime and the battle is working out pretty good for the users really. You can now get a free hypervisor from either party and get started right away. Hardware assisted virtualisation and general advances are lessening the performance issues, so virtualisation becomes a more and more sensible business decision for any size business.

The number twos are a quite large group. Virtual Iron, VirtualBox, KVM and the fabled Hyper-V from Microsoft are all broadening the offerings to consider. Virtual Iron is now part of Oracle, VirtualBox is Sun… now Oracle. So expect more pressure from Oracle in the future. Especially if they can bring the virtualisation strands together (which they will/are). As a BIG name in enterprise computing anything Oracle offer should be considered pretty carefully.

For a smaller organisation Xen perhaps is still the first port of call, followed by VMware as you grow. That said, ESXi makes the case for VMware from the start quite compelling. What Oracle will bring to the table will be interesting and of course Microsoft’s Hyper-V as always threatens to change the landscape completely through pure ubiquity of Microsoft products in IT. VirtualBox (now in Oracle’s portfolio) is a bit of a dark horse, especially in terms of Competing with VMware’s Workstation product.

Automation:

There is one king here, Puppet. It is probably the most common automation tool in use in the Linux world. On the Windows side, life is more complicated and diverse.

In terms of automating server infrastructure, the landscape is quite barren. Cassatt are… well they have been acquired by CA, will this be them saved or euthanized time will tell. OpenQRM is progressing very well as an open source project after the commercial business that spawned it passed away. And of course Puppet is here also.

VMware are making inroads into this area and we watch with interest to see when/if they move beyond managing VMware to take on physical machines and other hypervisors in earnest. It could be a compelling move on their part. There partnership with Cassatt seemed to spur developments in this area, but now Cassatt is… well, the question is does VMware see a business in managing physical machines and other hypervisors?

Cloud

Cloud computing has grown on the hype level exponentially, and actual use and services grow also, though not at the same rate as the excitement surrounding the subject. Amazon are the clear leaders here, offering storage, computing, database, queues, map reduce and a content delivery network. It is arguably the most mature platform and probably the largest.

But the competition is growing and finding niches and unique features that allow them to compete with Amazon. Google’s AppEngine continues to attract Python developers, and the rumours continue about support for other languages and new features. Also more people are making their services applicable in a cloud environment or building their entire business on other peoples hardware/services.

We for example provide our cloudbackup product using more than one storage provider. Which also raises the subject of localisation. You are now able to base your cloud infrastructure in a region of your own choosing rather than just the USA. People like Rackspace and Amazon have expanded their services to allow you to keep your infrastructure in Europe for example. But there are also local providers who fill a niche by being (in our case) in the UK, so any ambiguity about moving data outside the UK and the DPA is lessened, though the issue of hosting your data on another companies hardware still remains.

Summary:

All in all, the hype exceeds the practical substantially, which is a shame.

Virtualisation, Automation and the cloud are useful tools that any size business can and should in our opinion be considering. Everytime your business encounters a physical restriction it is time to consider one of these methods. If your servers disk drive is getting full, can you use a cloud based storage service (like our cloud backup software) to create a new drive with unlimited capacity?  Need a new server, then consider creating a virtual server. Have an application that is straining a server? Consider cloud based processing power perhaps?

What we are seeing is that the hype in many ways is scaring off the “normal” businesses.

The “sexy” tech startups are leaping onboard and we have the poster children like Animoto basing everything on cloud services, but the more traditional companies are moving more slowly. This is in part their cautious nature perhaps, but also the hype is confusing the issue. Virtualisation, Automation and Cloud make good business sense but if over hyped start to look like “snake oil”.

To sum it all up, everything is basically a little further along than it was a year ago, the landscape is suprisingly stable with Amazon, Google, VMware and Xen and the other big names still being dominant and competing more with one another. Bringing new offerings to a public which is “almost” ready to come onboard.