More than 10,000 people are expected at the VMworld 2007
conference in San Francisco today (11 September), as industry
experts speak about the trends and challenges in
implementingvirtualisation.
Speaking ahead of the conference,
VMware chief executive Diane Greene said the company plans to
invest in research and development to increase the reach of its
virtualisation platform.
"You are going to see the ability to run more desktops on
servers and companies investing more in thin clients. This is going
to allow companies to have PCs with instant restart and no booting,
and have a lot more control over the management of the data," said
Greene.
VMware is also using the conference to reveal details of a
contract it has been awarded by the
US National Security Agency. Under the deal, the company will
provide its software in government workstations so that officials
can access information requiring different security clearance
levels from a single physical machine.
The process of virtualisation, which makes a single computing
resource, such as a server, appear to function as multiple
resources, is expected to rise in popularity owing to the savings
businesses can make, said analysts attending the event.
"More than 90% of users deploying virtual machines are doing so
to cut back on x86 servers, space and energy costs," said Gartner
vice-president Thomas Bittman.
In related news, Microsoft may push back the release of its
Viridian virtualisation software, which it previously said
would be released 180 days after the now delayed Windows Server
2008 (see below).
Ben Armstrong, program manager on the core virtualisation team
at Microsoft, said, "It takes time to write good software, but we
are confident of delivering [the virtulisation component] within
180 days."
John Abbott, an analyst at 451Group, said, "Virtualisation
technology included as part of Windows Server 2008 would give
Microsoft a direct inroad into VMware's customer base." But this
delay gives VMware another six months to consolidate its huge
market lead in the virtualisation space, he said.