30 Minute Interview

Expect virtualization to skyrocket

Jim Lenox, General Manager, VMware Asia South talks about virtualization in a conversation with Neeraj Gandhi.

Jim Lenox

“2008 will witness the real proliferation of virtualization. Even SMBs are expected to be a party to this,” said Jim Lenox, General Manager, VMware Asia South.

“Globally, the virtualization market is huge. In India though, it is relatively new. The first VMWare server came in 2001, and it’s been only two and half years in India. But I must say that adoption is growing at a fast pace in the subcontinent. This has largely to do with the growth of the Indian economy,” said Lenox.

He went on to add that enterprises seeking high growth would definitely look at virtualization as a plausible factor and that virtualization can offer cost savings that not many other technologies can. “There are only a few technologies that can offer the cost savings that virtualization does,” he added.

Lenox said that SMBs have different requirements, and that they look for cost and simplicity. He added that SMBs do not have dedicated teams, nor the investment and skills to care of the virtualization part. “Any company with five or more servers can deploy virtualization. VMWare has products to meet this requirement.”

Lenox said, “We have been endorsing standardization in virtualization for years now, and it serves us well. There are three areas to be looked at—virtual disk, virtual machine and system management. The whole idea of standardization has picked up steam and even the box makers want this to happen.”

That said, Lenox was particularly enthusiastic about the whole idea of virtualization at the desktop level. Virtualization Desktop Interface (VDI) said Lenox, “has emerged as a very hot topic in India. In fact, it can be said that India is ready for it. We are in discussion with the top ten BPOs in India to deploy virtualization at the desktop level. In addition, even a few software houses, and banks are looking at this kind of virtualization.

Trends like automation of power management, patch management etc. will come to the fore. “Desktop virtualization will become the next big thing in the coming years, and India will be ahead in this revolution,” he concluded.