Virtualization is a big buzzword right now, and for good reason.  The more we virtualize, the more flexibility we build into our infrastructure.  What we are really talking about is providing a layer of abstraction between our resources.  The entire IT industry is moving in this direction and it’s fantastic.  Swapping server hardware has never been easier.  Network traffic can be grouped and segmented without extra hardware.  Storage space can move moved, increased, and even migrated to higher performance arrays without downtime.  These added abstractions need to continue and I see every aspect of the data center benefitting from virtualization.

You virtualized what?

Anything is possible.  We can abstract the power from the hardware and circuits, which might allow us to redistribute power as needed to various parts of the data center and ease use of products with heterogeneous power requirements, including the power hungry 10 gigE coming our way.  We would only trip virtual circuits.  Virtual power, virtual cooling, virtual phones, virtually anything is possible.  Virtual IT staff?  Well, that’s called outsourcing the staff and is as useful as virtual money, right?  In the world of IT storage, providing a layer of abstraction between the file system and the operating system should be focused on.  We also need to improve the underlying resilience technology.  With SSDs being fragmented by nature and most of the time being slower on writes than spinning disk, a RAID 1+0 looks pretty good, especially since it’s cheaper per gigabyte too.  A RAID 1+0 could lose half of its disks and still run without issue.

Back to Reality

I understand there may not be a perceived need for some of these technologies yet.  There still are several opportunities for more abstraction.  Too much abstraction can make management cumbersome.  The key is abstraction with less complication.  Let’s take a look at the needs of SMB/SMEs, the Small-to-Medium Enterprises.  Many of these companies have enterprise-class needs for storage, network security, and messaging solutions.  These needs don’t necessarily mean they have the money or space to fill these roles and house this technology.  How do you get network monitoring around the clock, and a warehouse full of information in a small office?  Bring in the appliances and the outsource companies.

Where Are The Abstract Appliances?

Appliances serve many purposes, and do a great job fulfilling various needs.  The problem with appliances is that the vendors that make them seem to be removing layers of abstraction instead of adding them.  Specifically I’m thinking of deduplication appliances.  There are too few deduplication appliances available for SMEs that do not have their own proprietary and locally attached storage.  EMC bought Avamar and rather than leaving the option of it being available as software or offering an appliance gateway, they now force the consumer to buy it with locally attached storage.  There is a virtual edition, but it comes with many restrictions and Avamar in general requires giving up on existing backup software investments and using the Avamar interface.  Data Domain does have a gateway product, but it is their flagship model and its price point punts it out of reach from the SME market.   Maybe an abstract appliance is an oxymoron, but I know I’m still looking for one to buy for our datacenter.

Proprietary file system you say?  Profit margin prohibitive?  Give us abstraction, and we’ll reward you with our business.