In an interesting interview with ZDNet UK, HP’s Ann Livermore, who heads the company’s Technology Solutions Group, talks about the difference between HP and IBM and touches upon virtualization.
A highlight:
What is HP’s take on virtualization, and where do you think the barriers are that stop people getting the maximum value from it?
Livermore: A lot of people associate virtualization with the server, and what really needs to be done by customers is to virtualize the entire data center, the servers, the storage, the networking, and the applications. And the first problem customers run into when they start doing that is: “How do I manage this thing? When I have physical servers sitting there, virtual servers and in a mixed environment, what do I do?”
The software we provide is to manage both the physical and the virtual servers through a single pane of glass, a single set of software, and actually create the equivalent of a logical server environment that is being managed. We believe one of the biggest impediments has been: “How do I manage this thing once it is in production?” With our software, you are able to visualize it, plan the changes, and actually make the changes in the environment.
Do you see a slow transition to virtualization?
Livermore: Yes, and most are going to find that the transition from physical to virtual is slow enough that they are going to have to manage both for a while.
But you do see virtualization on the desktop becoming more popular?
Livermore: Absolutely. We believe that for security reasons, for performance reasons, cost reasons, any of those can be compelling reasons for a virtualized desktop–or a thin-client accessing the services you need from that device.
Could this be ideal for blades?
Livermore: PC blades can be an implementation of virtualization. HP made an acquisition a year ago of Neoware for our PC business to give us the capability to have a virtualized client environment. So we feel good about our blade business. Half of all virtualized environments are blades, so when people are thinking of virtualizing, very often they end up with a blades environment. That places us in a strong position.
[Source: Cnet News – Newsmaker]