Globalize your server sprawl

Are you ready to globalize your server sprawl? Want to chase your data around the world? Guess not, but it’s again about the everlasting dance between CapEx and OpEx and now we are encouraged to breakthrough the walls of the datacentre. Despite my 'virtualization atheism' I wouldn’t say it's all a lie, as we're doing a lot more for less. More complexity, security, specialization and licensing in less square footage for example.

Even Cloud Computing make us more trouble ahead, it’s not really a turnaround. Only differentiator is in how costs are charged. This is not something revolutionary, but was common in those days computer cycles where expensive. Unfortunately, that became out of fashion with distributed processing. So the genie is out of the bottle by decentralizing processing and now we have an ever-increasing need for IT resources.

Cheaper provisioning does not encourage an awareness of cost to the business. And most Cloud Computing solutions don't really offer the 'pay as you go' and are more like 'Going Dutch'.  That makes these solutions look like virtualization 2.0, so let me walk through 5 frequently heard arguments for virtualization and my view about them:

1. Virtualization reduces complexity; It seems a contradictio in terminis to say that the introduction of virtualization would simplify complexity. A virtualization host seems to be suffering from personality disorder by both being the server and playing to be others. 
2. Virtualization saves money; Virtualization provides a more efficient use of resources and accelerate the delivery of systems, but will not help you lose weight. Trading a lot of cheap toys for fewer but more expensive cleans the room but is only a shift of costs. 
3. Virtualization is no specialization; Indeed, a monkey can convert a physical machine into a virtual entity. This is perhaps the reason for the new server sprawl in many virtualized infrastructures. Guess the delicate difference is whether you want an effective or efficient infrastructure.
4. Virtualization adds protection;  It's true you ease recovery but this is mainly a trade because other measures become less effective. Usual precautions for organization security do not apply in the same way and must be replaced or extended. 
5. Virtualization is green; This is relative because the replacement of obsolete, often more-power consuming technology by new equipment alone is better for the environment. But after all it’s the business that demands for more IT resources.

Cloud Computing can liberate us from the suffocating walls of the company and help us to save money when applications are rationalized and modernized. But these walls seems to be more persistent as most applications are still designed with only functionality in mind and never think  about manageability or cost accounting. That’s perhaps the reason why these are deployed by copying over and over the server stack again. Continuing this provisioning in the cloud, where data is replicated expands your server sprawl worldwide.