TheInfoPro

Written by Daniel Kennedy, Research Director for Information Security

On Aug. 26, VMware, via a blog entry, quietly announced its acquisition of PacketMotion, a network security provider concerned primarily with user activity management. Perhaps key to the deal for VMware is PacketMotion’s April release of its PacketSentry Virtual Probe, a tool designed specifically to provide visibility and access control in communications between virtual machines. The implementation, releasing the tool in the form of a low-impact guest VM, provides a key enabler to visibility on what users are accessing within a virtualized environment, augmenting with identity characteristics the monitoring VMware had in place with its own vShield solution. …

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Written by Sean Hackett, Research Director for Cloud

Originally published as a ThursdayTIP to the respondent network of TheInfoPro. Would you like to receive all of the ThursdayTIPs the minute they are released on a complimentary basis? Then join TheInfoPro’s respondent network.

This is the first edition of the bi-weekly Cloud Computing Thursday’s TIP that you are entitled to receive in exchange for participating in TheInfoPro’s Cloud Computing Study. This week we are highlighting the three leading roadblocks/inhibitors to successful cloud projects: change management and learning, complexity, and upfront costs.

Fifty-two percent (52%) of those interviewed said that change and learning represented the largest roadblock or challenge to the implementation of their cloud projects. Teaching people to do things differently is always challenging, but the disruptive nature of cloud computing brings another dimension that makes embracing change even more difficult. Many IT pros feel that cloud computing represents a likely trip to the unemployment line as companies consolidate through virtualization or move projects to a third party. This makes it harder for IT pros to embrace the cloud as a net positive for their organization. In our interviews several respondents stated that their employees were often “reluctant” or that the cloud represented a different “cultural mindset.” In addition, many noted that the cloud represented a new technology and a new model for procuring and managing technology, which often requires employees with a different skill set.

Reduced complexity and lower cost are often cited as benefits of cloud computing; however, respondents to our study highlighted both cost and complexity as leading inhibitors. In fact, 32% percent of respondents cited complexity and 15% cited cost among their top three roadblocks to cloud project success. Our definition of complexity encapsulates many of the technical challenges associated with integration and interoperability, virtualization management, and migration. Our findings also highlight that although a cloud solution is often cheaper in the long term, it’s not free in the short term. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of respondents cited cost reduction as a leading driver of cloud adoption. In the same study, 52% of respondents said cost is a leading roadblock, as many struggle, in an increasingly challenging economic environment, to justify and secure the budget (largely for private cloud) needed for the up-front implementation and ongoing management of a private or public cloud solution.

The struggles associated with cloud projects often map to those found in most traditional projects. Moving to a new system or supporting one is always going to result in a certain amount of disruption. However, structural changes, like in staffing or operating models, will be an increasingly daunting management challenge for many organizations in the long run. With this in mind, the largest service providers and vendors in the world are lining-up with pre-integrated cloud-in-a box solutions and other professional services capabilities needed to make the transition to the cloud as easy as possible. However, let’s not forget that we have been here before. Can anyone spell ERP or transformation?

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Written by Peter ffoulkes, Research Director for Servers

Originally published as a ThursdayTIP to the respondent network of TheInfoPro. Would you like to receive all of the ThursdayTIPs the minute they are released on a complimentary basis? Then join TheInfoPro’s respondent network.

Despite the buzz around desktop virtualization, its demand and usage are still incidental – the technology is on an evolutionary path. While 25.7% of large enterprises and 19.6% of midsize enterprises are considering desktop virtualization, deployment growth is modest, and the footprint within organizations is expected to remain small for the vast majority. Usage tends to be concentrated toward offshore developers and contact centers.

TheInfoPro’s research specific to virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) shows blended approaches to the desktop evolving over time, which includes desktop virtualization, application virtualization and web services. From an adoption perspective, desktop virtualization is not yet mainstream, with 47% in use. The vendor landscape is interesting, with Citrix and VMware in a near tie for in use; however, VMware is the leading vendor in pilot or in plan. Interest in Microsoft VDI solutions decreased substantially in the second half of 2010.

The number of desktops being supported by desktop virtualization tends toward the extremes, either less than 200 or more than 900, which indicates that VDI has yet to gain significant traction as a mainstream IT initiative. That much said, there is a definite trend toward increasing the number of servers and virtual desktops supported in 2011, implying a transition from pilot projects to production deployments.

As a server pro, you may be interested in which IT trends your peers are adopting. At the end of 2010, VDI had attention but little commitment.

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• Larger vendors are leading in choice for infrastructure upgrades, points to potential M&A targets
• Forty percent (40%) of organizations are increasing security budgets in 2010
• Sixty percent (60%) of organizations already utilizing cloud-based infrastructure services or intending to do so in the next two years.

New York – February 23, 2010 – TheInfoPro, an independent research company for the IT industry, today released the results of its Information Security Study, which showed that 40 percent (40%) of enterprises are planning to increase their 2010 security budgets. …

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By: Sandra Gittlen
08 February 2010 | ComputerWorld | Original Article

Vendors claim you can pack dozens of virtual machines inside one physical server. But that’s a bad idea for heavy-duty applications. …

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