Users ofvirtualisation softwarehave
complained that the combination of costlylicensing agreementsand a lack of
support from suppliers is eroding the cost advantages offered by
the technology.
These businesses say they are failing to reap the full benefits
of virtualisation technology, which allows organisations to run
multiple systems on a single server.
The potential benefit of virtualisation is lower hardware and IT
admin costs. Since the software is not running on physical
hardware, it needs to share the processing power of the physical
server with other applications. As reported in Computer Weekly last
week,
IT analysts, user groups and users of virtualisation software argue
that the licence fee should be lower than a physical server
licence to reflect this.
Computer Weekly has now learned that users of virtualisation
technology are struggling to get the support of application
suppliers.
Gary Sussex, ICT services manager at
Newham Borough Council, has encountered this attitude with some
of his suppliers. "The biggest problem we have with implementing a
true virtualisation environment is their lack of acceptance by
third-party suppliers," he said.
It is not clear who should take responsibility for supporting
software running on a virtual server. Responsibility seems to fall
into a black hole between the middleware supplier and the
application supplier.
The Association of Teachers and
Lecturers, for instance, was forced to shelve its
plans to move a document management system over to its new
VMware ESX Server 2.5 virtual environment because the supplier
would not support the application if it was virtualised.
Those companies that have outsourced their IT infrastructure may
also lose out, as fees for hosting servers remain the same for both
physical and virtual servers, even though virtual servers do not
take up datacentre space.
Trevor Didcock, director of information systems at motoring
group The AA said, "Our infrastructure outsource deal is structured
so that we pay for the maintenance of each Unix/Windows image.
Given this structure, we pay as much for virtualised images as we
do for separate physical servers."
IT departments usually licence server software using central
processing unit (CPU) based pricing. Here the licence fee relates
to how many processors are installed on a physical server. But IT
professionals are concerned that such server-based licensing
schemes do not accurately reflect usage when applications,
middleware and operating systems are run in soft partitions using
virtual servers.
In fact, some suppliers do not differentiate between a physical
server and a soft partition. This means that a user buying a large,
multi-processor server will end up paying to license the software
on all the installed processors, even if the application uses one
or two.
Ben Booth, European chief technology officer at market research
company Ipsos Mori, said
the underlying problem was that companies had to pay the same
licensing fees for running the applications on virtual servers as
they would for running each application on dedicated hardware. This
cuts into the savings they make on hardware costs from running
virtual servers.
Another difficulty is the lack of standards governing how
software should be licensed for a virtual server environment. Roy
Illsley, senior research analyst at Butler Group, said, "We are not
seeing any standard techniques becoming apparent, as each software
company seems to have its own way of addressing the issue."
Forrester Research has found that software licensing and support
agreements are rarely virtualisation-friendly. The analyst company
said users with substantial numbers of virtual servers would not
save any money on software over comparable numbers of real
servers.
"Some suppliers still resist supporting virtual machines on the
grounds that they are not among their certified platforms," said
Forrester vice-president Frank Gillett.
For many IT users, suppliers appear to be behind the
virtualisation technology curve, offering costly licensing and
complex support.
Nick Kalisperas, director for delivery at suppliers trade body
Intellect, said, "The work we are doing has not yet focused on
virtualisation licensing. Users should work with their suppliers to
find the best licensing scheme."
What is clear from the IT managers and directors contacted by
Computer Weekly is that they feel the IT industry must tackle the
issues concerning virtualisation licensing and support to help them
deliver what promises to be a breakthrough architecture for
datacentres.
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