Novell announced today (Feb. 25) that it was acquiring PlateSpin, a data center virtualization management tool maker. As I’ve been covering how to prevent virtual machine sprawl, I’m interested in getting a look at what PlateSpin brings to the table, in particular the PowerRecon and PowerConvert products that enable virtual machine chargeback and usage accounting and workload portability between networked physical resources.
In my tech analysis of how to prevent virtual machine sprawl, I reported that Ziff Davis Enterprise Editorial Research had found that 80 percent of respondents said lowering hardware costs was their top virtualization driver. I suggested in the story that controlling virtual machine management costs would rise in importance after the physical-to-virtual (“p2v”) transition was complete.
I suspect that products like those made by PlateSpin and strategies such as Novell’s drive to monitor and manage multiplatform virtualized environments will quickly become the important factors in determining the success or failure of a virtualization project.