Virtualisation should not just be seen as a way to crunch down your server fleet or as a way to outsource IT to the cloud. Its real value may lie in finally allowing us to get to a real abstraction layer in software that could lead to much greater business flexibility.
That is the view of a company called Centralis, which the more long in the tooth of us may remember was originally a spin-out of some of the core IT function of British Gas some 15 or so years ago. The firm 2010 timeframe styles itself as a consulting and implementation specialist with a particular spin on what it calls enabling ‘agility’ – a somewhat abused term in ICT, it has to be admitted, but one which does seem to make sense if you buy the argument.
Which goes something like this: IT is all too often hampered by being tied down to the physical characteristics of the target device, hence the original move to thin-client in the mid 1990s. But that was basically a sort of attenuated client-server, as there was still a hard coupling with the back end server, even though most of the functionality was delivered by the wire, not sitting on the PC/PDA.
But with virtualisation, that link is dissolved, allowing the applications and services to live in one more logically-bounded place, this time not even tied to a specific hardware locus. So, according to Centralis’ MD Ewen Anderson, we end up with what all us programmers always wanted, abstraction of the business logic from the implementation constraints (that and a date with Sarah Michelle Gellar/substitute babe current when you were thinking about this).
The pay-off for the internal IT leader out of virtualisation, then, could be much a range of benefits, ranging from ‘the usual’ (reduced licence fees, less server purchasing, an opportunity to clean up the IT ‘loft’) to quite cool business benefits.
As in? Like much slicker M&A, for a start. The firm has worked with clients like Speedy Hire, the UK’s largest tool and equipment hire company, which tends to grow through acquisition of smaller competitors which it re-brands. Anderson’s company has in co-operation with the firm built a centralised IT package for its all its outlets, based on standard hardware and applications and a Citrix backbone at every depot across the UK, which means when it buys (or opens) a new site it’s that much quicker to rollout.
Seems trivial, but some of us know that a key challenge for all organisations is printing, so standardisation on just two printer models across all depots is mandated, at a stroke reducing IT support and management overheads and minimising the costs of consumables. Its employees can work from any location without having to familiarise themselves with new desktops, services or systems, the centralised solution can be managed remotely and overall the customer has a core shared central service model, with all those nice simplification, standardisation and centralisation benefits such a thing brings.
An interesting side-effect of this argument – that virtualisation is also a way to free up your IT as much as save money running it – is that you as the CIO would be forced to really pare down your IT farm to what the business really needs. "It’s a bit like a business continuity exercise," Anderson told CBR. "Instead of asking which applications you really need to get back up after a disaster, ask which applications all offices really absolutely have. That may be 20 or even 10% of what you currently run."
I think there’s benefit in this way of thinking. Like they say in the Dr Pepper ads, what’s the worst that could happen if you were to conduct a thought-experiment along the lines Anderson suggests? You may end up with the kernel of a new way of working with apps that could be the best response to your current challenges. Good luck!
