Virtualization trends in 2007 and industry predictions for 2008

At virtualization.info, Alessandro Perilli presents a very nice wrap-up of what was predicted for 2007 versus what really came to pass. One of his comments is that analysts were wrong to suggest that automation of virtual environments would play a strong role in managing virtual resources in 2007. While he’s right that it was not “key” in 07 and certainly he is correct that most virtual resources are not managed in an automated fashion, I really disagree with the overall characterization of automation as unimportant. Certainly much of the buzz currently around virtualization is centered on the automation of virtualization (be it site recovery, orchestration or virtual lab management). Beyond that I believe that automation is a buying impetus as well. I guess we’ll see in 2008!

virtualization.info: Virtualization trends in 2007 and industry predictions for 2008

Virtual Labs and Education

I posted this article yesterday on ZDnet’s education IT site:

Virtual labs and education by ZDNet’s ejosowitz@surgient.com –

Yesterday, I asked for people to share their thoughts via a guest blog on virtualization in Ed Tech. Guest blogger Erik Josowitz provided us with the following (thanks, Erik). Feel free to talk back or submit your own guest blog with some specific experiences or implementation details.

Virtualization is great tool but, like any Swiss-Army knife, success with it depends on the task at hand. One of the places that people get into trouble with virtualization is when they try to use out-of-the-box virtual infrastructure with non-technical audiences. Virtualization is a great solution but often is not a complete solution.

In education we’ve frequently seen challenges that look like appropriate places to implement a virtualization solution, only to find that the end-result is not fully usable by the intended audience. One example is providing hands-on lab environments to support application training. Success in the workforce today depends on high-level application skills and there is no better way for students to attain those skills than through hands-on use of the software applications.

Many educational institutions provide computer lab environments to help support their student population and provide access to necessary software applications. Many of these lab environments have become the source of IT management problems as they become virus-ridden, get subverted as distribution sites for pirated software or music, or just plain have the normal IT management issues associated with a shared resource in a public environment.

For many institutions their student population brings with them their own PCs which solves one problem but creates another. The lab issues diminish but the problems of providing secure access to software (and software licenses) often takes its place.

The answer, we’ve found, is virtual lab management – using virtualization to deliver secure computing environments as a shared resource. Virtual labs allow administrators to serve up a clean and unchangeable environment for each student – in the lab or on their own PC – on-demand. This makes it easy to provide access to applications that students either can’t afford individually or that their home PCs cannot support. It makes it simple to track and monitor lab usage and to control the use of resources so that systems are not subverted into file servers. Virtual lab management sits on top of virtualization (from Microsoft or VMware) and tells it what to deliver and to who. It makes it easy for non-technical users to select the types of applications they need from a menu and to gain access to those environments without needing to understand virtualization, networking, hosts systems or anything about how it gets delivered. Best of all, virtual labs make it easy to manage capacity. By scheduling time in the lab environment the shared resource is managed for maximum utilization. If more capacity is needed it is simple to add additional resources to the system. The end-users simply see an increase in availability.

Virtualization may not be a panacea for educational institutions, but for a subset of problems, a centralized virtual lab may enable technology administrators to focus their time and attention on enabling learning rather than administering systems.

Surgient’s Future After a Strong Third Quarter

David Marshall interviews me in his InfoWorld Virtualization Report blog, regarding Surgient’s recent announcement of a strong third quarter for virtual lab management applicaitons.

InfoWorld Virtualization Report | David Marshall | InfoWorld | Surgient’s Future After a Strong Third Quarter

Surgient Announces Record Third Quarter

Surgient announced that it achieved record growth in the third quarter of 2007. With a record number of new deals in the third quarter, including the company’s first seven figure license deal, Surgient is on pace for 60 percent year-over-year revenue growth. Surgient third quarter bookings grew to almost three times the bookings for the same quarter in 2006.

Surgient Announces Record Third Quarter

Webinar: Power Up Application Testing with Virtual Labs

Surgient and Utopia Solutions will jointly present a webinar on accelerating software delivery with test automation and test lab management.

What: “Power Up Your Application Testing – Accelerate Software Delivery with Test Automation and Test Lab Management”

When: Wednesday, November 28 2007, 11a PT (2p ET)

Speakers: Lee Barnes, founder and CTO, Utopia Solutions and Erik Josowitz, VP Product Strategy, Surgient

Register: https://surgientevents.webex.com/surgientevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=666451502

Electric Cloud, VMware Team Up

VMware and Electric Cloud announce intent to connect Electric Cloud Commander build-management to VMware Lab Manager. This would allow developers to leverage the virtual lab environment across the development cycle.

Dr. Dobb’s | Electric Cloud, VMware Team Up | November 7, 2007

The big question in Testing Outsourcing

Some interesting thoughts/questions on outsourced testing and a very interesting graph on relative market sizing found here.

To be or Not to be: The big question in Testing Outsourcing « Perpetua knowledge Services Weblog

Win an iPhone!

At Surgient Success (success.surgient.com) we’ve launched a contest. The 5 most active participants in the discussion forums as of November 16th will win Apple iPhones! So if you are interested in virtual lab management and want to talk more about it, and also have wanted an iPhone…. For more information and rules/conditions etc take a look at http://success.surgient.com

virtualization.info: Release: Surgient VMLA 5.3

Alessandro Perilli at virtualization.info takes note of the release of Surgient VQMS 5.3 and its availability for download. Alessandro actually provided some key impetus for the release being available this way as he encouraged us over the past year to make the product downloadable. We look forward to his comments on the product.

One minor correction, though, his note suggests that the download is of only part of the product. The download, available at http://www.surgient.com/download is actually a full version of Surgient Virtual QA/Test Lab Management System 5.3. Thanks again, Alessandro!

virtualization.info: Release: Surgient VMLA 5.3

VMWorld 2007 – The Big Bang of Virtualization

Just got back from VMworld 2007 in San Francisco and what an amazing time it was. 10,000+ people gathered to discuss virtualization from every point of view. Strangely absent this year was much talk about Workstation. It was there but all the focus was on server virtualization. What this meant for development and testing was Virtual Lab Management. No real news around VMware Lab Manager, but it was a strong presence in the VMware exhibit and a very well attended part of the sessions. Both Surgient VQMS and VMlogix Lab Manager were also exhibited at the show. This was the largest show of its kind that I’ve seen in many years. It almost felt like the 2000-bubble again! I’m certain that VMware’s IPO only served to increase the drumbeat around them and drove further attendance at the show. If we saw you at our booth at VMworld, thank you for stopping by. If not, we look forward to meeting you next year!