The technician said: the virtualization management tool is too repeat.

In 1990s, small cars looked like each other and it was hard to see which manufacturer made them. Now, the same situation occurs on Virtualization management tools.

At the VMworld 2011 conference, I saw a large number of virtualization tools. To be honest, they are not very different. Green, yellow, and red status signs are just a few diagnostic functions.

I understand that using different colors is a common standard for virtualization management tools. I don't expect any improvement in this regard. Your vendor) will use the same color as your competitors. However, you should also design your tools to distinguish them from other tools and have your own characteristics and a sense of presence. There are not only aesthetic issues, but few products have important innovative functions to distinguish them from other products.

In fact, some virtualization management tools have outstanding functions. For example, SolarWinds Virtualization Manager processes collected data using application interfaces and displays the data on third-party protocols and other web pages. Xangati Management Dashboard Suite uses a unique method to record and replay the current virtualization status. VMware vCenter Operations Manager can learn about normal server behavior and avoid overnight warnings when routine backup starts and violates standard CPU thresholds.

Such functions are indispensable, but there is still room for improvement in virtualization management tools. Some vendors need to upgrade and break the regular rules. Although the above functions are available, none of them make us feel amazing. What is this function? How can manufacturers stand out in the virtualization management field?

Virtualization management tools should focus more on how to manage a small number of physical hosts that lingers in practice. We also hope that these tools can be integrated with hypervisor and underlying storage to make Snapshot Backup part of the record replay function, not only to record virtual machine parameters, but also to keep its status when an event occurs. These tools can even be integrated with technologies such as VMware vShield to isolate virtual machines if problems are detected.

If there is no significant difference between virtualization management tools, the market will choose a winner based on price and vendor fame, and this arena is very dangerous. As an architect and technician, I hope that the winners and losers are determined by innovation and business value.