Virtualisation - 101

IDC has forecast that the virtualisation services market alone will grow from $5.5 billion in 2006 to $11.7 billion in 2011, as data centre managers struggle to address power and cooling issues and the need for increased capacity.

David Postel, MEA channel manager for Red Hat, was in SA recently to promote the new release. He says Red Hat prides itself on being one of the Linux companies that allows companies to rapidly develop and deploy new applications, and to build a flexible infrastructure that can rapidly adjust to the needs of the business. With the release of version 5 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, this open source vendor says it`s now making available "out-of-the-box virtualisation".

"For many customers, traditional virtualisation products have failed to provide a complete solution that enables them to enjoy the benefits of a fully virtualised IT infrastructure. Some products provide server virtualization, while others provide storage virtualisation. Integration is minimal, resulting in poor performance and complexity, management tools are inconsistent, and customers aren`t satisfied," says Postel. "Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform integrates server and storage virtualisation technologies into a single, easily managed product, delivering a complete and highly functional environment."

REAL-WORLD VIRTUALISATION

"A primary goal of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform was to make virtualisation simple and practical in real-world deployments," says Postel. "So the product includes server and storage virtualisation as well as a powerful system management infrastructure."

Postel points out that virtualisation is especially relevant to South Africans as they battle to cope with the power crisis. "It`s a great way to save power - if you can reduce the number of machines you`re running, it`s an immediate saving. And it allows the same performance on a virtualised guest machine as any other machine."

THE BUSINESS OF PARTNERS

As a significant emerging market for Red Hat, SA has been earmarked as a growth area - Postel says that the company has been achieving about 40% year-on-year growth on a global level, but that SA`s growth rate has been higher on average. However, there is no definite strategy to open an office locally.

"We have plans to open a local office in SA, but we`re not sure when that`s going to be," Postel says. "The day a Red Hat office opens here, though, you can be sure that business has really taken off."

Postel says the Red Hat Enterprise Linux family of solutions has a "huge" partner ecosystem that customers can draw on to complete their deployment. "Red Hat`s ecosystem of certified applications is by far the largest in the open-source market, and its size creates a powerful halo effect, attracting new ISVs that are looking to support Linux. To date, nearly 3 000 applications have been certified on Red Hat`s Enterprise Linux and JBoss product families.

"We rely on our partners to push our products," admits Postel. "They are therefore very important to us." He explains that the company has one distribution partner - Obsidian, three advantage business partners - Aptronics, TSI Systems and Gobiton, and a few training partners locally. Obsidian is the only partner that can offer both Red Hat and JBoss training.

"We are building up our network of partners, and we are looking at ways to enlarge this group all the time," says Postel. "For the first time ever, we are holding a partner summit in Malaga, Spain. We are inviting our partners from across the MEA region - not just the channel teams, but the executive teams too."

He explains that the aim of this summit is to provide the partners with as much content and value as possible to make it worth their while.