Even today, I would say that data center virtualization efforts are simply tactical responses to a given problem, say server sprawl. Within a given technology silo, they may fix a problem, but, as a whole, is the data center any better off? Probably not, and managing disparate virtualized assets on top of physical environments might make things a bit worse.

I don’t think “virtualization” is going to deliver any net benefits to the data center until we can address the issues of orchestrating services across technology silos. So, if I move a virtual machine, the SAN, firewall, switch and load balancer, etc, all have a clue on what to do next. This should be the next great battle in the data center. There are a lot of interesting solutions out there and, of course, we have some interesting things in the pipeline too. The problem is that, to date, no one has a good holistic solution, so it seems like some M&A activity needs to happen (no, that’s not a hint) or at least some solid alliances built, before customers get something truly practical.