2014 Recap of Virtualization Technologies

2014 was another banner year in data center virtualization innovations for storage, networking and integrated resource management. Advances were also made in response to demands for higher security, support for hybrid cloud and virtualization services, and the pervasiveness of enterprise workforce mobility. Here are ten of last year’s most important developments.

1. VMware embraced OpenStack, the leading IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) solution in cloud computing for controlling pools of storage, networking and processing resources. Their OpenStack distribution, labeled VMware Integrated OpenStack or VIO, allows customers to migrate to an open source base while retaining the ability to manage through VMware’s vCenter.


2. VMware expanded their leadership in the software-defended data center (SDDC) space via PaaS EVO Rail and EVO Rack hyper-converged infrastructure packages for small and large organizations, respectively. These cross-provider hardware and software packages are designed specifically to streamline deployment in support of SDDC expansion. Already, OEM partners Supermicro, EMC, Inspur, Fujitsu, Dell and Net One Systems Co. are certified to offer single-point integrated systems.


3. Companies are racing to virtualize their mission critical applications and data in the public cloud as they become familiar with new security and privacy solutions. The advantages of dynamic scaling and infrastructure efficiency by utilizing the public cloud for the largest applications has become impossible to ignore.


4. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure made a big leap forward this year in engineering graphics applications. For example, VDI technology from Citrix paired with NVIDIA’s most powerful GPUs and Dell computing hardware allowed Boeing to efficiently design the 787 Dreamliner using a global engineering and design team accessing a single database.


5. Mid-year, VMware brought a new level of capability to VDI and DaaS technology with its release of Horizon 6.0. It supports enterprises that rely on a mix of VDI and non-VDI machines. End-user software is containerized, deployed in the public or private cloud or on the desktop. Users can access enterprise apps via Workspace from any device whether they exist as a public or private cloud service or a desktop application.


6. VMware announced a new suite of products based on a more scalable architecture under the brand name vRealize. This major release allows single-console visibility of an entire enterprise’s network, storage and computing devices plus state-of-the-art analytics, alerts and support for problem detection and remediation.


7. Virtualization within the ‘Internet of Things’ leapt forward in 2014. For instance, Wind River®’s release of a new virtualization profile within its VxWorks® OS supports embedded virtualization by allowing any combination of VxWorks, Windows® or Linux OS to share memory and processing cores.


8. Nearly 100 percent of technology companies have implemented bring-your-own-decive (BYOD) initiatives as of the end of 2014. Furthermore, well over 50 percent of IT companies have identified support for mobility and BYOD as top spending priorities in the years ahead.


9. Network-as-a-Service or NaaS, began a new chapter with the Metro Ethernet Forum’s announcement of a Third Network Initiative based on the forum’s Ethernet 2.0 specification. Service coordination, APIs, network protocol independence and clarity around physical and virtual service endpoints will be included. The goal is to provide on-demand, secure and scalable network service across multiple network providers while meeting existing SLAs.


10. 1As containerization technology grew from a niche into common knowledge, the implementation of virtual micro-services and the architectures to support them went mainstream in 2014. This development is leading to increased economic advantages for both large and small players, especially in mobile cloud and virtualization services.

In the near future, 2014 may be seen as a watershed year for virtualization technologies and services as they become imperatives for IT companies going forward. Keep an eye on 2015 to see how these new developments play out.