Virtual horizons

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At this point I keep feeling it is a bit expensive for us to jump on the wagon and I am waiting for the technology to mature. Bassem Aboukhater, regional IT. - director, Leo Burnett.

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The decision, when it comes to virtualisation, varies from one company to another, not because of how they feel the region is impacting it, but because of centralised worldwide server policy. - Mohammed Sabunchi, infrastructure director, DIFC.

If virtualisation was a hot topic before the financial crisis, discussion has now reached fever pitch, thanks to the potential cost savings it offers end-users. But it is one that warrants further investigation, over and above the rhetoric, as to where the region is in terms adoption and what the major considerations are when embarking on virtualisation of the data centre.

The potential upside of data centre virtualisation is clear and evident. In its simplest form you take one server, create a golden image and have a virtualised server ready to use, essentially letting you bank the cost of a second server. We are in the middle of a recession and not having to shell out for infrastructure might well spark some inertia for your organisation to go down the virtual route.

Merely cutting out, or at the very least reducing, future expenditure is not where the cost savings peak though. Money can be saved in a variety of ways. Obviously, virtual servers take up less space. Power and cooling costs may go up in the server hosting the virtual environment, but that is not comparable to the extra costs that would bite if the equivalent infrastructure investment had to be made. Plus, maintenance costs should fall as the level of infrastructure does.

Of course not all of the potential gains resulting from data centre virtualisation are financial. One of the ultimate aims is to ingrain an inherent flexibility to the IT system that will maximise productivity of the workforce. If conducted properly a full server virtualisation will allow the IT administrator to apportion the exact amount of services, applications and power as and where needed and with ease. For instance, a golden image of a virtualised server can easily be moved from one server to another - a malleability that aptly suits the modern business environment of the Middle East, which commonly features distributed enterprises.

There is also the benefit that carrying out data centre virtualisation is a step towards future proofing as solutions are increasingly designed to work around the VR layer. By isolating applications within a virtual server the IT manager can also actively prevent one application from impacting another during upgrades or as changes are made. And finally by creating a virtual server, you can deploy more than one operating system on a single hardware device.

The positives to taking to VR in your data centre do not end there and they are limited only by the creativity, skills, know-how and resources of the IT department deploying it. But despite all the benefits, the picture painted by IT professionals on the ground is not one of unequivocal commitment to a virtualised present and future, but of cautious forward motion towards it. This is a scepticism punctuated by a wariness towards the velocity and fervour of the VR marketing drive.

"In the Middle East I would say that it is in the infancy," remarked Ahmad Al Mulla (main picture), vice president of Information Technology at Dubai Aluminum, on data centre virtualisation in the Middle East region. "Very few companies have done it, and those that have are usually the multinationals and have certain branches in the Middle East."

Al Mulla is among those end-users in the industry that feels hype surrounding virtualisation has overtaken the actual level of adoption in the market. This is however, not to say Middle East companies are not looking to virtualisation in the future, it is more that the pace is not as fast as vendors would hope or indeed uphold.

"I think over the next three to five years we will have a lot of projects on consolidation and virtualisation," asserted Al Mulla.

Bassem Aboukhater, who presides over the computer network of creative advertising agency Leo Burnett as regional IT director for the Middle East, is rather sceptical towards virtualisation in the data centre. He does say though, that were Leo Burnett to need more servers than the 25 it currently has in place at its Dubai location, it would certainly be looking to virtualisation as a way to make that upgrade.

"At this point I keep feeling it is a bit expensive for us to jump on the wagon and I am waiting for the technology to mature. It has definitely been a few years and it is definitely not where it used to be a few years ago," he added.

Interestingly, it must be noted that Aboukhater also believes that certain elements of virtualisation have taken on needless complication: "Why can't the OS be smart enough to handle two, three or five applications at the same time and handle them in a way that you can easily migrate them from one virtual system to another and keep the up-time? I feel it is all marketing and they are just introducing an additional layer of complexity to the whole mix."

It is very unlikely that Al Mulla and Aboukhater are alone in their assessments that virtualisation has not gained complete acceptance in the Middle East market. It must be said that at no point has any commentator said that virtualisation will not happen here, but the clear message is there is still a great deal of work to be done by vendors, integrators and end-users alike before most, if not all, of the data centres here are fully virtualised.

Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) which from an IT perspective offers infrastructure and location services to its body of largely multinational financial clients sees that virtualisation in the data centre is a reality among its end-user base, but concedes this is likely to be the case because of decisions made outside of the locale.

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