PC virtualization

Last week, Lenovo announced the first low-level client virtualization software platform offered by any PC hardware manufacturer.

Lenovo’s Client Virtualization Platform (CVP) will be the base technology for customer solutions shipping with Lenovo PC products later this year. Lenovo’s Client Virtualization Platform uses the latest hardware features to isolate applications. These applications provide improved internet security and manageability, while minimizing the impact on performance. At Intel’s Developer Forum in Shanghai, Lenovo made the first public demonstration of solutions based on this technology. Lenovo’s platform uses Intel Virtualization technology to help to bring similar benefits to PC clients with near native performance and full Windows PC experience.

“Our new client virtualization technology underscores Lenovo’s commitment to innovation,” said George He, senior vice president and chief technology officer, Lenovo. “Our leadership in PC virtualization will enable us to optimize PC systems for virtualized applications and give our customers access to more efficient, more stable, and better performing virtualization solutions in the near future.”

“Intel and Lenovo have worked closely on optimizing virtualization for several years,” said Gregory Bryant, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Digital Office Platform Division. “By taking advantage of Intel’s Virtualization Technologies, Lenovo’s Client Virtualization Platform is able to bring new levels of security and manageability to customers.”

[Source: Tarry Singh]

Gartner says virtualization will be the highest-impact trend changing infrastructure and operations through 2012.

From the press release (emphasis ours):

“Virtualization will transform how IT is managed, what is bought, how it is deployed, how companies plan and how they are charged. As a result, virtualization is creating a new wave of competition among infrastructure vendors that will result in considerable market disruption and consolidation over the next few years.”

According to Gartner, the leading edge of this change is server virtualization, which promises to unlock much of the underutilized capacity of existing server architectures. Server virtualization is already having an impact on the server market; Gartner believes that virtualization reduced the x86 server market by 4 % in 2006. As hypervisor prices drop sharply and management costs decrease because of increased competition, virtualization will have a significantly larger impact, and Gartner analysts predict that more than 4 million virtual machines will be installed on x86 servers by 2009.

The use of PC virtualization is also set to increase rapidly. The number of virtualized PCs is expected to grow from less than 5 million in 2007 to 660 million by 2011. On the PC, the decoupling technology that breaks the close ties and dependencies between hardware and software occurs at two levels: between hardware and the operating system (machine virtualization) and between the operating system and applications (application virtualization).

Check out Gartner’s special report on virtualization, including a number of useful guides and a podcast with industry analyst Thomas Bittman.

Lenovo Becomes First PC Maker to Announce Proprietary Client Virtualization Platform (CVP)

Gartner: Virtualization Wave To Cause Huge Market Disruption And Consolidation Through 2012