War of the third kind - Reflection - 4 years later

I don't consider myself much of a technology prophet, but I found this document which I shared with the top management of my employer about - 4 years back...

Dated: July 14, 2003

Wars of the third kind

The signs

Though it may not be so evident today, may be not in coming weeks, but it’s in the horizons. All signs point to another war of computer architecture. The common factor as it has been in most of times, in the recent – Microsoft (and few others) vs. rest.

This time, it will be in the area of “on-demand” computing.


One Microsoft way, server virtualization

Microsoft (recent acquisition products from Connectix Corp) and VMware are pushing the concept of server virtualization. The concept is one powerful machine (usually multi-processor system); many servers.

Bring up servers with blink of the eye. Need a mail server, Boom! It’s there. Need a web application server, Boom! It’s there. To naked eye one machine. To the network monitor different two servers each with its own network stack, it own resources – memory and hard disk.

The reason, the powerful machine, if used as a single server, is under utilized. Why not just more applications on the server? What happens when you want the reliability of Linux for your web server and ease of Microsoft Active directory services to manage users? What about some legacy application so critical to the organization running on Windows NT?

Think! Grid computing

The idea is “super computing power at the cost of peanuts” from IBM, PolyServe and others. The method, several machines networked to give the feeling of a single all powerful mega-server. The concept has been around for a while and implemented to varying success. But selling MIPS as commodity on demand is a slightly new one. With increased supports for more operating systems and protocols this looks now looking as viable option.

The conclusion

War as it is… the front lines yet to be drawn, pitches yet to be made. But one size does not fit all as many would let us believe. Soon, we as users will make choices and it may well be combination of both. How about a grid computing network supporting server virtualization? Now that’s triple sundae with cherry on top.