PAN Manager

Jeremy Geelan over at Virtualization Journal penned an interview held with Christine Crandell, Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer for Egenera, offering a fairly interesting read. Previous coverage about Egenera can be found here.

Excerpt:

Virtualization Journal: How does Egenera see the future of the data center? How much of a role will the cloud play in Enterprise IT, for example?

Christine: I see data centers rapidly evolving into reliable dynamic data centers. So what do we mean? At Egenera, we’ve adopted the Burton Group’s definition, which says “The dynamic data center is born from the orchestration of virtualized IT systems and resources.”

A reliable dynamic data center is the next step after virtualization – that’s because virtualization is the essential foundation. Without it, companies cannot achieve the agility, flexibility, and reliability needed to evolve into a reliable dynamic data center. Let’s look at what the data center of the future will be – it won’t be homogeneous – rather it will be highly heterogeneous with components like computing, I/O, and storage stitched together through intelligent fabrics. A holistic infrastructure management system will manage all assets – physical and virtual – including those internally owned and externally service-provided (cloud), all through a centralized console.

Server virtualization is mainstream with almost 70% of companies use x86 virtualization and many are looking at their RISC and mainframe systems for additional opportunities. The benefits of virtualization go well beyond consolidation. Cost reduction is often the starting point, but the benefits really extend well beyond TCO. Virtualization can help you speed development cycles and new resources faster. Companies that have been using server virtualization for 2+ years (that’s about 50% of companies) have realized that virtualization – in its many forms – positively impacts quality of service and their ability to meet SLAs. Automated provisioning, high availability, and disaster recovery are easier and cheaper to implement.

The next evolutionary stage is to address application workload consolidation as a critical enabler of speed, efficiency, and optimization. They enable dynamic allocation and balancing of computing resources based on business policy. Other critical components include unified fabrics, standardized management interfaces, an orchestration engine, and IT governance.