VDI, FT, HA and the Cloud are Users' Next Stops on Their Virtualization Journey
Those who have their feet on the ground are always closest to where the action is and few are closer to end-users in regards to their desktop and server virtualization initiatives than VMware resellers. These individuals recently gathered in Orlando, FL, for VMware's annual Partner Exchange in part for training but also to swap stories as to where their customers are in their respective journeys toward virtualizing their environments. What they heard and shared is that customers no longer debate whether or not to deploy virtualization. Rather their customers are trying to figure out just how far down the road they can go.
The VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) is VMware's annual partner conference whose purpose is to educate and enable partners to have success with VMware in their customer deployments. One of those in attendance was HP's Solutions Marketing Manager for Virtualization, Mike Koponen, who was there throughout and gained some insights in regards to current customer virtualization initiatives as well as what they are doing in "the cloud."
One of the bigger revelations to him was the accelerated level of adoption of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) that had occurred since last year's PEX. He said that last year when it was asked of the audience how many of their customers had started or had already deployed VDI, only a small number of hands went up.
This year when the same question was asked, the response was totally different. Now approximately half of HP resellers confirmed they had already deployed VDI and, of the half who had not already deployed VDI, half of those confirmed they had opportunities in the pipeline.
Granted this is only anecdotal evidence and not enough to conclusively say that VDI adoption is well under way. But as these resellers come from across the United States to attend this event and, with over 70% of them confirming that they had either already deployed VDI or anticipated doing so in the coming year, it suggests that VDI adoption is primed for much broader adoption in 2012 with these HP resellers reporting that the HP BladeSystem c7000 and the HP StorageWorks P4800 G2, the first SAN converged into the BladeSystem architecture, are emerging as the preferred architecture for these VDI deployments.
The news as to where customers are in their adoption of server virtualization has also shifted. Over the last few years customers were kicking the proverbial tires on server virtualization technology and maybe virtualizing web servers, file and print servers and applications that were not deemed "business critical."
That is no longer the case. Many are now on well down the path toward virtualizing their environment and are looking to capitalize on the virtualization investments they have made. Two specific areas of interest that HP resellers see among its customers are VMware High Availability (HA) and VMware Fault Tolerance (FT.)
As HP customers virtualize and consolidate their existing physical server infrastructure, they have lower tolerances for any downtime caused by the failure of any underlying physical component (server, network or hardware.) This is prompting the deployment of VMware HA and FT software on the VMware server to ensure their virtual machines (VMs) stay operational.
On the back end storage side, HP has seen an uptick in customer interest for its StorageWorks P4000 G2 SAN Solution. As many of the resellers sell into customer accounts that are best classified as "midmarket" or "small enterprise," they find the P4000's clustered storage architecture particularly appealing.
Organizations can then split the P4000 across two physical locations and spread a single P4000 volume across them. In this way if an organization loses one site due to hardware or environmental issues, VMware HA can do its thing and restart the VMs at the second location. Using the P4000 this technique works as VMs will automatically attach to the exact same volume at the second site since the same volume exists at both sites.
Of course it is hard to have any VMware conference and not talk about "the cloud" and the VMware PEX is no exception. However what was noteworthy from Koponen's perspective is how the conversation around "the cloud" has changed internally at HP since its acquisition of 3PAR.
A specific topic of conversation is 3PAR's huge presence in managed service providers (MSPs.) HP 3PAR is found in approximately 70% of the Top Ten public cloud storage providers and, as more of HP's customers look to move some or all of their data to the cloud (private or public,) HP has an inside track to help facilitate that transition.
Customer interest in HP 3PAR storage is specifically being driven by the new found ability that HP brings to create hybrid private-public clouds. As many MSPs (Verizon and Terremark for example) already use HP 3PAR, if HP customers adopt HP 3PAR as their private storage cloud solution, they can easily connect with the storage clouds that these MSPs have to create individual application or entire site recoveries using storage at the MSP's site.
The VMware Partner Exchange is clearly where resellers meet. But top of mind for these resellers is to understand their customer's priorities and then to make sure they have and are delivering the right virtualization solutions to meet their customers' needs.
Based on what these resellers are seeing and hearing, they recognize that many customers are already on the virtualization superhighway. As such, they are looking ahead as to see what their next stops are and they already have VDI, VMware HA, VMware FT and "the cloud" in their sights and expect to be picking these technologies up as their passengers on their way to the cloud in the very near future.
The VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) is VMware's annual partner conference whose purpose is to educate and enable partners to have success with VMware in their customer deployments. One of those in attendance was HP's Solutions Marketing Manager for Virtualization, Mike Koponen, who was there throughout and gained some insights in regards to current customer virtualization initiatives as well as what they are doing in "the cloud."
One of the bigger revelations to him was the accelerated level of adoption of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) that had occurred since last year's PEX. He said that last year when it was asked of the audience how many of their customers had started or had already deployed VDI, only a small number of hands went up.
This year when the same question was asked, the response was totally different. Now approximately half of HP resellers confirmed they had already deployed VDI and, of the half who had not already deployed VDI, half of those confirmed they had opportunities in the pipeline.
Granted this is only anecdotal evidence and not enough to conclusively say that VDI adoption is well under way. But as these resellers come from across the United States to attend this event and, with over 70% of them confirming that they had either already deployed VDI or anticipated doing so in the coming year, it suggests that VDI adoption is primed for much broader adoption in 2012 with these HP resellers reporting that the HP BladeSystem c7000 and the HP StorageWorks P4800 G2, the first SAN converged into the BladeSystem architecture, are emerging as the preferred architecture for these VDI deployments.
The news as to where customers are in their adoption of server virtualization has also shifted. Over the last few years customers were kicking the proverbial tires on server virtualization technology and maybe virtualizing web servers, file and print servers and applications that were not deemed "business critical."
That is no longer the case. Many are now on well down the path toward virtualizing their environment and are looking to capitalize on the virtualization investments they have made. Two specific areas of interest that HP resellers see among its customers are VMware High Availability (HA) and VMware Fault Tolerance (FT.)
As HP customers virtualize and consolidate their existing physical server infrastructure, they have lower tolerances for any downtime caused by the failure of any underlying physical component (server, network or hardware.) This is prompting the deployment of VMware HA and FT software on the VMware server to ensure their virtual machines (VMs) stay operational.
On the back end storage side, HP has seen an uptick in customer interest for its StorageWorks P4000 G2 SAN Solution. As many of the resellers sell into customer accounts that are best classified as "midmarket" or "small enterprise," they find the P4000's clustered storage architecture particularly appealing.
Organizations can then split the P4000 across two physical locations and spread a single P4000 volume across them. In this way if an organization loses one site due to hardware or environmental issues, VMware HA can do its thing and restart the VMs at the second location. Using the P4000 this technique works as VMs will automatically attach to the exact same volume at the second site since the same volume exists at both sites.
Of course it is hard to have any VMware conference and not talk about "the cloud" and the VMware PEX is no exception. However what was noteworthy from Koponen's perspective is how the conversation around "the cloud" has changed internally at HP since its acquisition of 3PAR.
A specific topic of conversation is 3PAR's huge presence in managed service providers (MSPs.) HP 3PAR is found in approximately 70% of the Top Ten public cloud storage providers and, as more of HP's customers look to move some or all of their data to the cloud (private or public,) HP has an inside track to help facilitate that transition.
Customer interest in HP 3PAR storage is specifically being driven by the new found ability that HP brings to create hybrid private-public clouds. As many MSPs (Verizon and Terremark for example) already use HP 3PAR, if HP customers adopt HP 3PAR as their private storage cloud solution, they can easily connect with the storage clouds that these MSPs have to create individual application or entire site recoveries using storage at the MSP's site.
The VMware Partner Exchange is clearly where resellers meet. But top of mind for these resellers is to understand their customer's priorities and then to make sure they have and are delivering the right virtualization solutions to meet their customers' needs.
Based on what these resellers are seeing and hearing, they recognize that many customers are already on the virtualization superhighway. As such, they are looking ahead as to see what their next stops are and they already have VDI, VMware HA, VMware FT and "the cloud" in their sights and expect to be picking these technologies up as their passengers on their way to the cloud in the very near future.
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