Challenges of a virtual world

Converting a business to a virtual world can be confusing and risky if not completed properly, so many organisations are overlooking virtualisation entirely.
VARs should take advantage of the lack of information available on the subject by educating their engineers and end users, according to analyst house Macarthur Stroud.
Hamish Macarthur, chief executive at Macarthur Stroud, told CRN: “The channel needs to consider opportunities surrounding virtualisation and educate customers.
“Vendors are doing plenty with virtualisation and will continue to do so. Channel partners should be more involved and engage with customers to help reduce the fear around the subject,” he added.
Macarthur feels there is a lack of knowledge about how to implement virtualisation. “There are many different ways to do this and VARs should take advantage. Not many firms understand the metrics of virtualisation systems, so there is an opportunity for resellers to teach them.”
He continued: “Another opportunity for the channel is to look at how customers view their own systems and work from there. For example, customers want to maintain business continuity and can be educated in this, as well as potential risks.”
“Because virtualisation is invisible it is still feared, but more businesses are starting to embrace the unknown,” Macarthur said.
The Federation Against Software Theft (The Federation) recently met with key partners to discuss concerns over the lack of licensing rules for virtualisation .
John Lovelock, chief executive of The Federation, said: “The meeting was called to influence the landscape of virtualisation. At the moment there is not a huge take-up as businesses think they will get burned.”
For example, businesses are concerned that if they switch to a virtualised infrastructure, it will not be easy to monitor the amount of PCs that they use and therefore how many licences they should be paying for. Some vendors have addressed this by having a central point in their virtualisation offerings that can tell the percentage of software being used, preventing a business from wasting money. “It is up to VARs to let customers know about these things,” said Lovelock.
Resellers need to find out what their customers want from virtualisation. “The Federation will be polling its end users and will run an event about virtualisation to develop an eco-system and better understanding of it,” Lovelock added.
Corporate VAR Computacenter was one of the resellers to attend The Federation’s gathering.
Terry Walby, data centre solutions director at Computacenter, said: “The Federation initiated the meeting because it had concerns about licensing in a virtual world. Hopefully those involved in the group will help clear up the confusion.”
Paul Cooper, head of software asset management for reseller SAMwise, said: “There might be lots of audit tools available to keep track of licences, however, every vendor has different rules. There is so much to learn on the subject and this widens the skills gap, as not that many people feel comfortable with virtualisation.”
Ben Stollard, sales director for software application reseller Virtualize IT agreed that it is difficult with no set of definitive rules for vendors, meaning licensing is different for each one.
“Having four servers in one box is like having four passengers in one car. How do you get those passengers to talk to each other when they are all from different vendors? Vendors are challenging their models to deal with licensing on a streamlined system,” he said.
Stollard explained that virtualisation has created huge changes in the market because most businesses accept a good idea. But he added that that a business may choose not to adopt it if there is nothing wrong with its current system.
“Like a fuel-efficient car, it’s a good idea, but you might not be able to afford one and your current car might be fine. Buyers need to consider when and where they would use it,” he said.
He added that virtualisation is a disruptive piece of technology and customers may be put off by this owing to lack of education.
Stollard said: “When implementing virtualisation, it’s like trying to change an aircraft’s engine while flying, without letting the passengers know. If the customer was educated more they would understand how this process is completed.”
George Teixeira, chief executive of vendor DataCore Software, agreed. “Networkers tend to know mostly about physical networking environments. Virtualisation is moving up a level in terms of skills, so more people need to be educated in it.
“Many end users think that the system is one huge virtual server, so if there is a virus, the whole system goes down. End users would be interested to know that viruses can be isolated to each server within the system,” he added.
Despite the potential risks, Macarthur stressed that there has been a tremendous take-up of virtualisation and invisibility should not be feared, as customers can fall back on their management tools to monitor their system’s condition.
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