Virtualization vs. Native application: Are they incompatible?

About a year ago, some large-scale virtualization software vendors, such as VMware and CA Technologies, began to contend with what they call the phenomenon of virtual stagnation.

According to their forecasts, the largest corporate users have a long way to go in their virtualization plans. Many enterprise users are enjoying the rewards of virtualized output, such as increased efficiencies through server consolidation, and increased flexibility to migrate their virtual workloads from one server to another.

But many of the early adopters who tried to virtualize began to stagnate after the initial gains were picked up, and applications that were easy to virtualize were applied only to small-scale systems. Industry experts predict that about 20% to 40% of enterprise applications are stalled after being deployed to virtualization.

A standstill on more critical component deployment virtualization (such as e-mail servers or transaction databases), even if VMware and other companies confirm that these applications are guaranteed to be secure in a virtual environment. Gartner research company predicts that more than half of the enterprise workloads will be deployed in the next year.

are VMware and CA companies just worried about the stagnation of their own sales performance? Or is it possible that most of the applications in the enterprise can be deployed virtualized without impacting performance? What are the reasons for continuing to run local applications on some specialized hardware for all the benefits of virtualization?

The fact is that most apps currently work well on virtual infrastructure, says David K. Johnson, a senior analyst at Forrester Research Inc. Virtualization vendors have been exploring a long way to address the performance challenges that hinder system configuration.

But not all applications can be rewarded for virtualization.

"If the application really controls a resource, such as network input/output or hard disk input/output, it may not be good for a virtual environment," Johnson said. In these cases, it is not advisable to deploy virtualization for application software because it will occupy the resources of the server.

Similar scenarios occur in the context of desktop system virtualization, which is technically operational, but is limited in value for a particular environment.

Using the Virtual Desktop system infrastructure (referred to as VDI), desktop systems can be virtualized in a server environment and delivered to users over the network. Early adopters of the virtual desktop system infrastructure are also subject to certain factors, such as the user may need a video or audio connector, or access to the desktop system through a WAN only.

With the introduction of VMware and Citrix's latest virtual desktop system infrastructure, two of companies have gone further on the delivery of more comprehensive desktop systems, such as features and performance, and new features include the ability to virtualize virtual desktop systems, and the ability to implement streaming desktops over WANs.

But the problem remains. Microsoft, for example, warns that the virtual desktop system infrastructure is as expensive as a non-virtual environment. Another problem is that the virtual environment does not provide the ability to fully integrate desktop system programs. "When a virtual application is installed, it loses the opportunity to install other programs," Johnson said. For example, in a virtualized environment, Adobe Acrobat cannot achieve the ability to print to PDF in Microsoft Outlook.

Not everyone needs these consolidation points, so in many cases the virtual Desktop system infrastructure is a good choice, and it does offer many benefits to enterprise users, such as a more secure and orderly desktop system management environment for administrators.

Another issue that may slow the pace of virtualization configuration is the fact that software license authorization audits are more difficult to execute in virtualized environments. Virtual machines are an unpredictable black box for most software inventory tools (although VMware has recently added some application programming interfaces to their virtual machines that can be useful for external programs in the virtual machine directory).

It is still meaningful to run some large applications directly on the desktop.

"For real large application software (such as CAD programs), local installation is necessary," Johnson said. People can use AutoCAD as their preferred workstation, so there is no reason for virtualization to install.

IT managers may consider virtualization of resource deployment. Recently many enterprise users are also considering what applications must be run locally. Virtualization is becoming an essential configuration model for more and more enterprise users, Johnson said.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)