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14th Oct 2009

Desktop — the Next Virtualisation Tsunami: VMware

VMware is working to lift the success rate of its desktop virtualisation rollouts with a new initiative to help its customers understand the changes in process required with implementations of the technology.

VMware's APAC managing director, Paul Harapin, told Computerworldthat while desktop virtualisation technology had proven itself, the people and processes side of the equation needed work.

"Most projects I see that fail generally have nothing to do with the technology - it's the lack of thinking and clarity around the process changes and different ways of doing things and that's certainly something we're looking at with our customers," Harapin said.

"The technology has proven itself with enough reference sites both globally and locally," he said. "That's not the issue. It's around: ‘how do I have to change my internally processes?' and people understanding the operational aspects. I believe it's pretty clear that the technology works."

Harapin said VMware had seen interest in both the high-end enterprise space, with desktop virtualisation rollouts of between 2000 and 4000 seats, and the smaller end of the market, with roll outs of between 150 and 200 seats.

"We are seeing tremendous interest - very much like I saw in our server technology four or five years ago - where customers are looking at it to solve a particular problem, and if it proves itself, roll it out across the organisation," he said. "I see it as the next tsunami of virtualisation."

Despite client virtualisation becoming increasingly popular, there was still much confusion and many misconceptions about the different technologies and how they will play out in the enterprise, according to analyst firm Forrester.

"Specifically, many firms still believe that client virtualization is a security risk or that a single technology will help them improve manageability, empower remote workers, and virtualise all their applications," a recent report from the company on desktop and application virtualisation advises.

"To make matters worse, vendors exaggerate the cost savings from client virtualisation and cite shorter ROIs than are typically experienced by clients - instead of highlighting the actual benefits that make client virtualisation worth investing in."

Harapin said the company was viewing the imminent migration to Windows 7 as a major opportunity for further migration to virtualisation.

"There has been a lot of latent demand - most organisations didn't touch Vista - so they have a lot of infrastructure out there they haven't wanted to touch. With Windows 7 coming out and with those projects coming to fruition, it provides an opportunity in that space."

Harapin said VMware was also receiving positive interest to its vSphere offering from both exisiting and new customers who were typically migrating up from free, or low-end virtualisation offerings in search of greater fault tolerance, availability and scalability.

Despite the mass adoption of server virtualistion across Australia, VMware had no shortage of opportunity to further grow deployments in its existing customer base.

"We are also seeing cloud providers generate activity in how they go to market with commercial models around the cloud and the majority are, or will be, premised on a VMware platform," he said. "There are still 50 million plus servers left in the world so we will be around for a while."

Source: Tim Lohman