Evolution of the Virtualization Ecosystem

It’s been a while since my last post – we got busy in the period leading up to VMworld and the dust is only now settling.  The good news is that it was a great show, and aside from all the intriguing conversations we had we also managed to walk away with the Best of VMworld Gold Award for Capacity Planning and Consolidation.  Since gold is about the only color we don’t have in our analysis maps, the award was a great addition to our booth :)

But enough about us – let’s talk about everyone else.  I think it would have been difficult to not notice the sheer number of vendors focusing on this space, and the fact that it is becoming a market unto itself.  There were solutions on display that seek to add value from every conceivable angle, and any shortcomings in VMware’s offering were being filled by multiple vendors.  If one takes the view that the virtualization game will be won or lost based on the ecosystem, not the hypervisor, then this bodes well for VMware.

If, however, one looks at the sustainability of this ecosystem then it paints a somewhat different picture.  The announcement of ESX 3i, which eliminates the Linux service console, undoubtedly sent a shockwave through the vendors that rely on that component to make their solutions work.  Any vendor running scripts on the service console or relying on access beyond the APIs will be in for hard times if VMware continues in this direction.  And, unfortunately for them, VMware should continue in this direction, as any product that doesn’t restrict access to approved, maintainable interfaces will become untenable in the future.

Which brings all of this back to that familiar argument about the downside of de-facto monopolies.  Even if your product uses the published APIs, your future is dependent on them.  And with one dominant player in this particular market, that creates a dangerous situation for ISVs.  We at CiRBA sleep at night because we are not dependent on this level of access, and even more so because we span all virtualization technologies and can even help provide mobility between them (which I’m sure helps our customers sleep at night as well).  But for other elements of the evolving ecosystem the story is much like that in nature: a little more diversity would probably be a good thing...