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Although virtualisation is undoubtedly useful, in reality you trade off one set of problems for another.

In all of the hype that began with some niche client solutions and then exploded into the server market, even CTOs of major IT vendors have lost sight of what virtualization actually is. Imagine how the average CIO feels...

Virtualization is the abstraction of system resources. The virtualized resources have two advantages over their backing resources: multiplicity (you can replicate a resource) and commonality (similar resources appear identical).

Yes, you can abstract the entire system, creating multiple copies of a common system architecture. This is platform virtualization, and it's where the hype begins and largely ends in the story of virtualization.

But virtualization is everywhere. We use it to allow several filesystems to share a common namespace (virtual filesystem). We use it to map alternative and/or imaginary processors onto our native processors (virtual machine). We use it divide system memory into isolated address spaces (virtual memory).

Virtualization isn't just a relic from the mainframe era that's coming back in style. It isn't the new black. It's always been THE black. Computer science is essentially the study of problem solving through a network of abstractions. From abstracting whole platforms with Xen on up to abstracting data with linked lists, it's all the same underlying idea.

So it stands to question if virtualization is over-hyped or under-hyped? No, it's just mis-hyped.

Linux and virtualization is no longer such an odd combination? It's interesting how great ideas stop being odd when leaders stop being ignorant. If flexibility were as important to selling computers 10 or 20 years ago as it is today, then virtual platforms and virtual operating systems would have been right up there with virtual memory and virtual filesystems.

Why is flexibility so important to selling computers today? Because of Linux.

Edited 2007-08-13 19:03