Communicating The Value of Virtualization

You think you're stressed? Tribbles, little furry creatures that practically took over Captain Kirk's starship back in the 24th century, were born pregnant. They ate constantly, which made them multiply even faster.

The writers of Star Trek were often prophetic. In this case, they may as well have been writing about servers, little creatures in data centers that just don't know when to stop replicating.

IBM may have been thinking of Star Trek when they approved an ad for their virtualization engine. Instead of the usual scenario of the stressed IT manager (we see it all the time in IBM ads), Big Blue might think of using familiar metaphors from entertainment.

What they've done in their new ad campaign isn't bad, it's just same-old, same-old.

Biz guy: They're all over. It's chaos, it's pandemonium.

Cop: What's going on here?

Biz guy. It started in the basement. They're in HR, accounting payroll.

Cop: How many are there?

Biz guy:  Hundreds, thousands.

Cop:  What are they?

Biz guy:  Servers.

Cop: Servers?

Biz guy.  They're cheap, pervasive, out of control.

You get the picture.
Servers seem to be giving birth and they won't stop. That is, until IBM comes along to save the day with virtualization. Not the solution Captain Kirk uses to rid himself of trouble, but one every IT manager is considering.

Virtualization lets IT managers buy servers with more discretion and control. Server virtualization technology lets them configure and run more than one virtual server on a single physical server. Hence, virtualization reduces procurement costs.

Does time still represent money?
What IBM doesn't reveal in their ads is the time savings you can realize with virtualization.  Hey IBM, remember that old phrase, "Time is money?"

Check out Baseline's story about Welch Foods (Out of a Jam). It used to take them up to five weeks to deploy a new server; it now takes as little as 15 minutes.

Not a bad ratio.