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VMware still leader in x86 Infrastructure Virtualization

Gartner published their magic quadrant again for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure. VMware again came out as the number 1 company in infrastructure virtualization.

The number of installed server VMs and containers has nearly doubled in the past year as competition improves, virtualization adoption expands, the midmarket heats up, desktop virtualization drives more workloads to servers and workloads are deployed by cloud computing providers.

The magic quadrant by Gartner shows VMware being the number 1 company in x86 Infrastructure Virtualization, followed by Microsoft and Citrix .

As of mid-2011, at least 40% of x86 architecture workloads have been virtualized on servers; furthermore, the installed base is expected to grow five-fold from 2010 through 2015 (as both the number of workloads in the marketplace grow and as penetration grows to more than 75%). A rapidly growing number of midmarket enterprises are virtualizing for the first time, and have several strong alternatives from which to choose. Virtual machine (VM) and operating system (OS) software container technologies are being used as the foundational elements for infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud computing offerings and for private cloud deployments. x86 server virtualization infrastructure is not a commodity market. While migration from one technology to another is certainly possible, the earlier that choice is made, the better, in terms of cost, skills and processes. Although virtualization can offer an immediate and tactical return on investment (ROI), virtualization is an extremely strategic foundation for infrastructure modernization, improving the speed and quality of IT services, and migrating to hybrid and public cloud computing.

For the entire article go to the Gartner post over here.

The Future Of Computing

Over at CES 2009 last week Microsoft’s Janet Galore gave a conceptual demo of how Microsoft’s technologies will change the way we find, share and use information. The video below will show you the next gen technologies and the way we will use them. A far as I can see we will:

Be connected everywhere; Each device will be connected to that one big cloud we have, the internet.
Have applications with social network integration; Social networking will integrate with applications. No more addressbooks, creating logins, sending emails, etc. We just share all information through the application we’re working in. How cool is that!
Flexible user interface; Apple may be a few steps ahead, but the flexible easy to use interfaces will also make its way in to the most common interface we use. Maybe even your own customized user interface for all devices. Talk about personal tweaking.
“Mind map” like presentation of information. I like mindmapping. It’s fast and structured method of showing information in two-dimensional form. Would be great to have such a feature in the future to present large amounts of information.
Multi language information display. Would be nice to write something in Dutch and everybody all over the world can read my blog post in their own language.
Device interaction. Maybe the coolest feature of them all. Devices that can interact with one another. Sharing information for you without much hassle and on display.

So have a look at this video and see what the future has to offer (according to Microsoft ofcourse 😉 ).

For more information go here.

Microsoft Virtualization Products Explained

I’m always looking for material to help other people understand what virtualization is all about. Came across this document by Mitch Tulloch of the Microsoft Virtualization Team. It isa nice PDF document about the different types of infrastructure virtualization solutions (based upon Microsoft technologies ofcourse) and is written in such a style that everybody can understand it. So if your looking for information about virtualization and are new to it, please have a look at this document. Ofcourse it’s also usefull for all you virtualizaton geeks as a reference to all the Microsoft Virtualization products.

Your can find the document here.