Virtualization and De-Construction

We live in fascinating times! The emergence of Software As A Service (SaaS), Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web 2.0 community-oriented applications is leading a drive towards the deconstruction of the monolithic application. At the same time we are seeing the infrastructure industry push forward with strong virtualization strategies and solutions that enable compute power to be turned up and down easily in response to demand. In parallel we are seeing the continued push to consolidate power in the communications industry with the wave of mega-mergers. At first glance this trend to consolidation seems to be at odds with the de-construction trend in the applications arena. But may be it isn't - The communications industry is being driven by the cost of deploying next generation infrastructure and the cost of acquiring the wireless spectrum in which next generation services need to operate. The wave of mergers is creating change in the underlying infrastructure that powers these major enterprises. However, very few of these organizations have the capacity to fully leverage the trends to virtualization in the IT infrastructure area. The ties to critical legacy applications is hindering the adoption of virtualization solutions. So how do these three very different worlds come together and co-exist. That is a subject that we will explore in future posts. This is a fast evolving area and one that deserves due consideration. I welcome your comments. Let's explore these issues together.