Vmware changes at the top

Not much to blog about in terms of my day, it has been heads down writing the report, and will be for the next two weeks.

Vmware ditch the Green agenda

Vmware announced this week that they have voted Dianne Green out as CEO and president, to be replaced by an ex Microsoft and EMC SVP. The key question is why and what does this mean for virtualisation and Vmware in particular.
My view is that Dianne, as nice as she was, was destined to be moved out because Vmware have become increasingly isolated in the virtualisation market, or to be exact they are loosing the marketing war on interoperability of virtualisation. I like most others assumed Dianne would be given time to show how Vmware was going to react to the Microsoft Hyper-V entry to the market.
I guess the vote indicates that the board did not believe her approach would address the issue of increased competition in the market. Her replacement, being from EMC, and an ex Microsoft executive, is an interesting choice, and indicates that EMC is taking a more hands-on approach to Vmware than is visible.
I would expect Vmware to start to be more vocal about its partnerships, and begin to build more open links with the likes of Citrix, Microsoft and others. The virtualisation market is still in a state of flux, and just because Vmware is dominant today, does not mean it will be in three years time. To maintain its lead Vmware must re-invent it’s self, and be the champion of interoperability between hypervisors. By doing this, it will increase the potential market size, and therefore increase its share of the revenues.
An area that remains potentially very fertile is that of desktop virtualisation, in this space Vmware has made some strides, but with Citrix having a massive install base of terminal services customers, Vmware must work hard to build on its brand name.
These are I believe interesting times for Vmware, they have every thing to gain, and every thing to lose, so must walk a certain line if they are to remain the face of virtualisation. What now for Dianne, well I would expect her and some colleagues to begin a new start-up in an adjacent market, and try to once again become a dominant figure on wall street.

Chaos rules

Last few days have been mad, I am heads down on the report and to be honest getting stuck on some of the more complex models, but drawing pictures helps.

Yesterday was a write off, I had the dentist, doctors for the kids jabs, British Gas doing an inspection, school. And the day was trashed because the nurse got up late, was behind with her work. That small thing made my whole day one of catch-up, and re-assign appointments. The Journalist were OK, and I made the vendor briefing, but I do not want another day like that.

Hyper-v worth the Hype?


I thought the 2nd August was 180 days for when Hyper-v will be released, but I am picking up noises that suggest it is next month, but I may be wrong on that. Hyper-v is a basic hypervisor, and as such lacks some of the more advanced features that Vmware, Citrix (XENserver), VirtualIron, etc have. I believe that the link up with Citrix demonstrates that Microsoft is going after the SMB sector with Hyper-v and leaving XenServer to complete in the enterprise market with VMware, while it works on making Hyper-v as technically capable as its rivals that is.

Vmware with it price bundles is attempting to move into the SMB space, however, what Vmware provides in terms of capability it lacks is a clear understanding of the market, and how to deliver to the SMB sector. Smaller vendors such as VirtualIron and Parallels have created a good reputation in certain SMB markets, but they lack the funding to raise virtualisation profile. Therefore, I believe that as Microsoft winds up its PR message, this can be used by the smaller vendors to ride on the coat-tails and enjoy more success.

Windows server 2008, is a very good product and I think this will become more widely used as the business case evidence is released to support Microsoft's claims of reduced management time and hence cost savings. As for Vista, well 2008 and Vista desktop is an argument from a support perspective, but with talk of Microsoft seven (vista replacement) due in 2009 time frame I think many may hold fire (if they can), which will mean organisations if their refresh is due in 2009, 2010 will have a dilemma use Vista or stay on XP. Evidence is mixed on this, but I believe Vista will more widely adopted in conjunction with 2008, but not in every case.

Only 6 weeks until the football season starts

After last week when it was one day event after another, this week starts in London, but it is home for nearly two months while I complete a report. I will get the odd day out, but at least I will some work done.

Virtualisation aims at the desktop next

The take-away from the Citrix and Vmware analyst events was they have both woken up to the fact that what the analysts have been saying for the past 12 months plus is coming true. Server virtualisation was full of gotcha’s, and end-users found them out and management vendors were not ready. The result was it stalled and damaged confidence.

However, the rise of desktop and application virtualisation is characterised by other vendors being ahead of the game, and the virtualisation vendors being slow to recognise its value. We will have to wait and see how this battle shapes up, as Citrix have a leading position and it is theirs to lose, but their market is based on the old paradigm, not the new. Therefore, I see this as a more level playing field where the best proposition wins out, and so far Citrix has a good story and Vmware some cool technology. What is needed is the mix of both.

Home Home in the office

Back home today, working on the out-line for the sections in the report, good job I have done some of it: as I have four calls with PR agencies and vendors today, so half the day lost.

The good thing is that I am in charge of my own work load, so if it is a hot and sunny day, I may well be in the garden, and catch-up when it is wet and windy (we are talking about a British summer here).

Tripwire, cool and useful – not something you hear everyday

In the world of server virtualisation one of the biggest challenges is the problem of ensuring all the virtual machines are operating according to a strict set of policies. Tripwire have developed, in conjunction with VMware, a Hyper-V solution will be available shortly, a free downloadable tool that will allow organisation’s to set policies and to test how the current environment conform to them.

I am a believer in the fact that one signal of a maturing market is when the eco-system includes free-ware, and many tools to help solve problems that only become apparent when technologies are used in live production situations. Virtualisation is rapidly moving in this direction, although it still has some way to go before you could class it as a mature technology.

VMware continues to broaden its capabilities

Day 2 of preparation on my key note speak next on ITSM, today will be all about putting the deck together, and doing a run-through. I generally find that I speak longer while practicing so for a 30 min key note at home it should be 40 min. We get three days prep and the last day will be Monday, see what I do then.

The weather has picked up and we are looking set for a dry day, the first for about a week. This helps as I find walking and running through my presentation very helpful, so if you see some chap who appears to be talking to himself, just listen a little closer, it could be me practicing. The reason I do it, is it is better to speak out loud as you hear what you are saying, and it gets your vocal chords ready for projecting your voice.


VMware acquires another company

VMware announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire B-hive Networks, Inc., a privately-held application performance management software company with headquarters in San Mateo, California and principal R&D facilities in Herzliya, Israel. With this acquisition, VMware will leverage the B-hive team and technology to offer proactive performance management and service level reporting for applications running within VMware virtual machines - on both servers and desktops. In addition, B-hive’s R&D facility and team will form the core of VMware’s new development center in Israel. The terms of the acquisition, which is expected to be completed during the third quarter of 2008, subject to customary closing conditions, were not disclosed.

This is just another move by Vmware as they expand its capability in the virtual market-place: because as the Hypervisor becomes more available and is less differentiated the value-add capabilities will be in the management space, but this requires a broad coverage and a new thinking on how organisations will get value from a virtualised data centre.

A world of virtual things

Today is mainly taken up with researching the material for my magazine article on server and storage virtualisation. The point is that these two areas are connected and have a symbiotic relationship, that is if you have one you need the other to obtain the real value from your investment. That will take about 4 hours, and then i will lay the article out, plan the flow of my argument and submit it to the editor for approval.
I also have only one vendor briefing today, VMware, which you will hear about on Monday. Have a nice weekend, and i have decided to write this blog in two parts, a diary for anybody interested, and an analyst comment on technologies i follow.

Virtualisation

The idea of infrastructure virtualisation is to increase the utilisation figures of servers and storage; however, it can also increase agility and delay capital expenditure, but server virtualisation will also need more storage, and increases your license costs. Therefore, before you leap do the maths, does it make sense for your organisation, or are there other solutions such as enterprise-class server or mainframes.