Software the Next Hurdle for Virtualization Technology

As the VMware Express rolls across North America—perhaps heading to a city near you, there are many out there who don't need to be sold on the benefits of virtualization.

By Amy Newman

Virtualization rates are now well into the double-digits, and many businesses are looking to figure out a way to improve processes using what they already have.

This is not always the wisest course.

Gartner Analyst Cameron Haight has a monthly meeting with clients to discuss perks and pitfalls they've encountered with server virtualization. In a recent blog post, he discussed answers to a question raised at one of those meetings: "From what part of the virtual server infrastructure have most of your performance problems originated ...?"

The results, which were surprising to Haight, found that individual virtual machines are the biggest headache, with 42 percent of them exhibiting performance issues. SAN/storage and the host server (e.g., ESX) were the problem for 26 percent and 21 percent of respondents. Ten percent of respondents said they had no performance problems, and none faulted the cluster or network.

Interesting, but important to bear in mind, is that these results come from only 19 companies. Presumably, they are also technology-savvy firms and probably more advanced in their virtual infrastructure than many others. In other words, they are not waving at VMware's 18-wheeler from the roadside.

Haight said he is aware of the limitations in the small sample set. Raw numbers aside, however, nearly half of the respondents had issues with the individual virtual machines and that bears examination from a wider perspective.

Haight said he suspects the problem is not so much related to virtualization as it is to the code in the application itself. It is, he said, "harder to fix code than to change a configuration parameter, so the onus was usually always first on the virtualization administrator."

This might just be the next major hurdle for server virtualization. The majority of applications currently running in the enterprise were not designed with virtualization in mind. Plenty of attention has gone to the hardware aspect of server virtualization, but little attention has been paid to the software side.

Businesses that don't refresh software frequently are far more likely to see these problems than those that buy the latest version of a given application, as ISVs are increasingly developing software with virtualization in mind.

Haight's findings should not result in what he described as, "any hasty strategy changes," but it is certainly a cautionary tale of what might lie ahead.

This article originally appeared on Internet.com's ServerWatch website.