CIO Reality Check: How seriously are you looking at KVM and Hyper-V

Posted by Bink on on August 6 2008, 9:23 AM with no comments

LinuxWorld: Do you think of virtualization as a "product" or a "feature"? How seriously are you looking at KVM and Hyper-V?

Clyde Williams, Infrastructure Systems Manager for Southeast Alabama Medical Center (CW): Interesting question, because I feel like virtualization is currently transitioning from product to feature as we speak. As long time VMware customers, while we do keep abreast of alternatives, we're not looking too seriously at any.

Walt Cornelison, Director of Information Technology for Tropitone Furniture (WC): Mainly as a product. Not considering KVM or Hyper-V, as they are early in product life at enterprise level and are not clearly defined as to differentiation with VM products we now use. We use so much of it right now - the pre-Hyper V virtual machines and appliances - that I haven't seen enough in there to justify us moving in that direction.

Jason Ford, CTO of BlackMesh Hosting and Solutions (JF): Definitely a product. Even though virtual services are purely logical, the set of requirements and outcomes from setting up virtual environments is very physical. Virtualization should be considered as a standalone product and not a feature with another operating system. Those systems created by a virtual product run and produce the same results as a physical server.

Keith Parnell, CIO, Stratum Marketing (KP): To our needs, hardware virtualization is a product. Virtualization will become as much an OEM-produced product as single-partition hardware in days past. Considering virtualization as a feature from a small business standpoint, rings of extra or excess costs against limited budgets.

Microsoft's Hyper-V technology launch has been on our radar for quite a few months. Lower overall costs for hardware purchases, server maintenance and system management could open doors we've not been allowed to factor into our current budgeting.

We currently run side-by-side systems with almost identical hardware configurations to accommodate Windows-based web services and applications and separately Linux-based web services and applications. Hyper-V will bring scalability and expandability to the forefront within our small enterprise that before we were not able to afford.

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