After doing a little bit of reading this morning, I ran across this blog post by Lori MacVittie which refers back to a VMblog.com post that attempts to predict what virtualization will see in the year 2010.

Lori’s post, titled “A Fluid Network is the Result of Collaboration Not Virtualization,” clearly disagrees with the original VMBlog.com post and states that there’s more to creating a fluid network than just virtualization:

The network will become fluid—I absolutely agree—but that metamorphosis will not [happen] solely because of virtualization.

It seems that Lori is focusing on “collaboration of infrastructure through integration based on standards-based control planes.”

In order for any company to see the “perfectly virtualized infrastructure” I would have to agree that integration of infrastructure is required to create the fluidity that is sought after.  One of the things that I feel is missing in her thought is the people factor, the operations, the processes and procedures.  Like the last company I did work for, they failed to see the true benefits of virtualization because they never reworked there processes and procedures.

Most companies think  that they can just virtualize and be done with it…wrong!  I mean, yes, you can virtualize and then say you have a virtualized infrastructure but you really don’t.  When I think of “infrastructure” I think of both the technology aspect and the processes/procedures in which the company uses to drive that infrastructure.  Makes sense right?  If a company sits down and hashes out the processes and procedures before virtualization took place, shouldn’t they do the same when virtualization has happened?  Makes sense to me…sound off in the comments with your ideas.