Microsoft Says Virtualization Only a Pit Stop in the Cloud Race

Microsoft is downplaying the relevance that virtualization technology has for the ongoing transition to IT-as-a-service, and notes that the Cloud is at the core of the next stage in the evolution of computing and not virtual environments.

The Redmond company is present at the VMworld 2010 U.S. conference in San Francisco, where ironically, it is telling customers that virtualization is no longer the destination, and that businesses wishing to ensure boost in efficiency and cost savings for future operations need to embrace the Cloud.

And as VMworld 2010 kicked off, the software giant published an open letter addressed at all VMware customers, warning them that signing a multiyear license agreement with the rival virtualization vendor will essentially get them stuck.

“VMware is asking many of you to sign 3-year license agreements for your virtualization projects,” revealed Brad Anderson, Corporate Vice President, Management & Security Division in the open letter.

“But with the arrival of cloud computing, signing up for a 3-year virtualization commitment may lock you into a vendor that cannot provide you with the breadth of technology, flexibility or scale that you’ll need to build a complete cloud computing environment,” he added.

Microsoft has said on numerous occasions that the move to the Cloud is inevitable, emphasizing that it is only a matter of ‘when’ vs. ‘if.’

And fact is that the Redmond company already has in place a comprehensive lineup of Cloud offerings. Customers can leverage a variety of Microsoft technologies previously available for deployment only in on-premise scenarios.

Of course, at the top of the company’s Cloud offerings is Windows Azure, the Cloud platform that is based on Windows Server, and comes with additional technologies such as SQL Azure, the hosted equivalent of SQL Server.

“Information Technology is evolving into a service accessible from almost anywhere, anytime, and any device,” Anderson notes.

“Virtualization clearly played a role in enabling this move toward IT services by simplifying the deployment and management of desktops and datacenters, which is why we made virtualization part of Windows Server. However, virtualization represents only a stepping stone toward cloud computing.”

There are of course, additional Cloud offerings from Microsoft, such as hosted versions of Office, Exchange, SharePoint and SQL.

One of the best aspects of Windows Azure is related to the interoperability focus of the software giant.

Customers are in no way limited to leveraging .NET for Windows Azure, as they can also build solutions using Java, Ruby-on-Rails, PHP and Eclipse.

“Imagine never having to set up a server, update an operating system or build a database system,” Anderson said.

“That is the promise of cloud computing: the ability to access core services quickly and roll out legacy software and new applications at Internet scale without having to deal with today’s deployment logistics, which exist even with a virtualized datacenter. In other words, if you liked the efficiencies and cost savings of virtualization, you’ll love the cloud.”

In the conclusion of the open letter, Microsoft asks customers considering licensing VMware to also consider its offerings.

Anderson promises that they will have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, from such a move.

“Not only is Microsoft’s server virtualization solution approximately one-third the cost of a comparable solution from VMware, but also a recent Microsoft study of 150 large companies showed those running Microsoft virtualization spent 24% less on IT labor on an ongoing basis (Learn more at www.microsoft.com/vmwarecompare),” he said.

“Most importantly, as you build out the next generation of your IT environment, we can provide you with scalable worldwide public cloud computing services that VMware does not offer.”