Virtually a success

Rob Tomlin looks at the business benefits of virtualisation and what it could mean for reseller opportunities in coming years

Virtualisation, the creation of a virtual version of something, is expected to offer considerable opportunity for resellers in the next 12 to 18 months. So where will those opportunities lie?

Virtualisation is making progress in three main IT areas: server, storage and network virtualisation.

Server virtualisation is the masking of server resources, including the number
and identity of individual physical servers, processors and operating systems, from server users. Put simply, it is migrating an infrastructure consisting of multiple servers and consolidating them on fewer servers.

Software from vendors such as VMware or Zen is then used to provide additional virtual server capacity.

Not only does this have implications on hardware costs, but it makes it much easier for IT managers to manage their real estate, while increasing resource sharing and use, and maintaining the capacity to expand.

Storage virtualisation is the pooling of physical storage from multiple network storage devices into a single storage device that is managed from a central console.

Network virtualisation is a method of combining the resources in a network by splitting up the available bandwidth into channels, each of which is independent from the others, and each of which can be assigned, or reassigned, to a particular
server or device in real time.

IDC has reported that the rate of servers being virtualised by users will increase from 35 per cent in 2007 to 52 per cent by 2009. Also, 54 per cent of firms surveyed that are not yet using virtualisation plan to do so in the next 12 months.

Research commissioned in the US and Europe by storage firm ONstor shows that 27 per cent of European respondents are implementing storage virtualisation today. However, that figure may seem low compared with the US, where 35 per cent of respondents are reportedly adopting virtualisation.

Widespread adoption
It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that every single datacentre in the UK is looking at, testing or implementing some form of virtualisation. In the UK alone, some 20 to 30 resellers have built their entire business model on selling virtualisation.

Those resellers are typically profitable and growing rapidly.

Further evidence of virtualisation’s potential is the backing it receives from
the world’s largest IT vendors. IBM, for example, via Interface and under the umbrella of its IBM PowerNet programme is offering resellers up to 10 per cent rebates on IBM hardware for any virtualisation installation.

The business case for virtualisation is simple: it reduces costs, energy use,
carbon emissions and the management resources required. From small companies with 20 to 30 servers or fewer, all the way up to the largest corporations with 500 servers, are looking to benefit from a virtualised technology environment.

Virtualisation even has benefits in small to mid-sized organisations. A
project by Interface and our reseller partner Insight at Withernsea High School using a combination of six IBM blade servers has been able to cut the school’s 27 power-hungry Dell servers to just three.

It also consolidated two server rooms into one, switched off all costly and
high-energy server room air conditioning and reduced server room power
consumption by between 65 and 70 per cent.

VMware virtualisation software is now operating on four blades to boost its capacity by 20 virtual servers. Under the new blade architecture with VMware software, the Yorkshire high school’s power bill for running servers has been slashed 79 per cent to £1,173 per year.

Virtualisation is a huge opportunity for resellers and as computers become more powerful and portable, an organisation’s ability to manage that environment becomes more complex and costly.

For IT departments, growing complexity leads to a whole host of issues: access
versus security, performance versus cost, flexibility versus control. It is not just about selling the software, but also the server, storage and networking hardware.
Virtualisation is not a silo sale.

Rather, it is a cross-department, pan-organisation project. Because of this, resellers are getting an opportunity to speak to the entire organisation, creating the right
environment for future up-selling.

Rob Tomlin is sales director at Interface Solutions