Leverage Multi-vendor Technology

Will you be a single virtualization platform company?
For most companies, a single hardware platform or operating system—even a single Unix OS—is not the norm. Innovation and competition constantly change the technology landscape. Platforms that used to be strategic and leading edge can quickly become tactical, less attractive or even obsolete. Although companies try to standardize to reduce complexity, over time most companies tend to evolve to multiple platforms, each with its own unique advantages and differentiation.

The same is true with server virtualization technologies. In the x86 server world, VMware is the current runaway market leader. As virtualization technology matures and more alternatives become available, however, open source-based alternatives from Citrix, Red Hat, Novel and others may become more attractive. There is precedence in the Unix world, in which open source solutions replaced entrenched proprietary operating systems. With the advent of Hyper-V, Microsoft will likely become a more significant player than in the past, capturing a significant share of the virtualization market. Finally there are the non-x86 virtualization technologies like Solaris Zones.

Almost everyone realizes that there will be multiple virtualization offerings in the market, but many companies think that they will be able to standardize on just one. Some companies have accomplished this with other technologies and might be able to do it with virtualization. History indicates, however, that this is a hard path to follow while staying on the innovation curve.

DynamicOps Virtual Resource Manager is designed to work across a variety of virtualization technologies from Citrix/Xen, Microsoft, Sun and VMware. VRM works with each of these technologies via their native management interfaces. All configuration changes, regardless of whether they were initiated by VRM or the native management tool, are collected and recorded in VRM’s operational data store. VRM provides a common management interface across all of these virtualization technologies, providing investment protection that allows companies to leverage the best most cost effective virtualization solution optimized for each operating system.