The overriding message that VMware execs Laurence Si, VMware Country Manager Malaysia & Brunei, and Matthew Hardman, Head of Strategic Development VMware Singapore, delivered supported by IDC was that the march towards the completely Virtualised Data Center is moving fast.
IDC presented figures suggesting that 57% of Malaysian businesses will be 60% virtualised by the year 2016. IDC also pointed to savings of US$1.3 billion between 2003 and 2020. When we questioned this number asking how the very companies that espouse cost savings show revenue growth year-on-year, Si and Ahmad Azhar Yahya (CEO of VADs) jumped in to explain that the savings are redeployed in improving quality of service to the business from the IT department.
DSA also question the rate at which IDC sees this mass software defined adoption. We asked Si what the reality of “software defined everything” is when you move beyond the top tier massive enterprises. He confirmed our suspicions that at the current time software defined in Malaysia is still very much about server virtualisation. He told us that there is still a huge amount of scope to maximise server virtualisation in Malaysia. Software defined networking and software defined storage mass adoption will come but it will take time. We agree with his assessment and welcome his frank opinion which brought a sense of reality to the hype.
Matthew Hardman added to the clarification. He explained that products like the new EVO:RAIL deliver software defined everything in one converged appliance. For users this means elasticity cloud on premise without having to build the complex infrastructure for themselves. Perhaps most important was the lengths that Hardamn went to highlight just how open VMware is becoming in this race to Software Defined Everything. He said that whilst VMware has all the components to software define an entire datacenter, they are happy to provide components and work with other technologies, even to the point of supporting server hypervisors from other vendors. VMware’s vision of the software defined datacenter does not have to be VMware from top to bottom. They can provide the server and network abstraction and work well with another product abstracting the storage.
DSA’s anecdotal analysis may be at odds with IDCs more heavily researched findings, but we agree on one thing: Software Defined Everything is coming. Its just a mater of how many years it will take to get there.
Malaysia IT adoption outlook points to more than half of businesses (57 percent) expecting their organization to be at least 60 percent virtualized by 2016
KUALA LUMPUR, November 12, 2014 – VMware Inc (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure today, announced its commitment to enable Malaysia businesses in their journey to build software-defined enterprises, with the unveiling of new solutions for the mobile cloud era, which includes the latest software-defined data center, cloud management and end-user computing solutions. This is in support of the latest survey findings by VMware, which revealed that Malaysia businesses possess a positive outlook on technology adoption as 57 percent of respondents expect to be 60-90 percent virtualized in two years.
1,168 business and IT managers and decision makers who participated in this survey conducted from September to October 2014 shared their perspectives on IT priorities in 2015, and the role of virtualization and software-defined data centers in Malaysia. The survey indicates businesses in the highly virtualized category are expected to more than double from 15 to 31 percent in the next two years.
In addition, an IDC whitepaper commissioned by VMware in October 2014, entitled, “Empowering Organizations in a Software Defined World”, highlighted that businesses in Malaysia would be able to avoid US$1.36B in costs between 2003-2020 as a result of virtualization of compute, storage and networking hardware, and leveraging a software-defined approach to managing IT. The savings, according to the IDC Datacenter Economies Index, would come from the four key areas of hardware (US$532M), real estate/maintenance (US$15M), administration (US$264M) and power and cooling (US$123M) just from 2014-2020.
Roger Ling, Associate Research Director, ASEAN Software & Services, IDC Malaysia, said, “Being able to better harness the value within the datacenter will become a critical business differentiator more than ever before. The IDC Datacenter Economies Index clearly articulates how much value – US$1.36B worth of cost savings – has been driven into the markets through server virtualization. What organizations need to focus on is how these technologies can deliver greater business value. Simply being able to virtualize some servers has a limited value, but when combined with a highly automated infrastructure, IT departments can deliver a degree of IT agility that the business has been demanding.”
“Aligned with the recent 2015 Budget initiatives to create a Capital Economy that is people-oriented, IT can play a pivotal role in enabling Malaysian businesses to be more agile and efficient.” said Laurence Si, country manager, VMware Malaysia and Brunei. “Given the strong push for businesses in Malaysia to boost productivity on the back of pressures from high costs, deploying technologies supported by the software-defined data center (SDDC) will not only enhance resource efficiencies and cost savings but also enable businesses to leverage these technologies to automate processes and enable business growth. The SDDC will help save Malaysian companies more than $1.36 billion from 2003 to 2020 and we want to enable IT to be more than just a cost center to the business and become partners to help accelerate business growth in today’s changing world.”
Key findings from VMware Malaysia Business Survey (2014):
Disaster Recovery, enterprise cost reduction, and security outlined as key business priorities for 2015
- Malaysia businesses define their top three IT priorities for 2015 as disaster recovery and business continuity (31 percent), reduction of enterprise costs (30 percent) and providing IT security and data protection (24 percent
The strong focus on turning to software-defined data centers could be attributed to the added technology advantages of virtualization. In the quest for productivity amongst businesses, organizations in Malaysia that can rapidly provision new services in a secure and highly available environment, while scaling dynamically as the business grows in a cost-effective manner, will in turn be able to succeed in this new era.
Businesses expect software-defined data centers to improve operational efficiency and optimize resource utilization
- Improve operational efficiency (29 percent) and optimize resource utilization (26 percent) were identified as the key drivers for adopting software-defined data centers
There is a paradigm shift in the IT expectations of enterprises from being just a productivity and efficiency driver to a catalyst in achieving business outcomes. With measures to continuously drive economic growth and challenges, including lesser resources such as land and manpower, businesses in Malaysia need to consider adopting technologies such as virtualization and software-defined data centers for operational efficiency and better resource utilization. This storage efficiency factor from virtualization has allowed less physical storage capacity to be purchased. From this reduction in physical storage required, more savings in hardware spending, and reduction in costs from power and cooling, data center space and storage administration can also be realized.
Costs and business culture as top barriers to adoption
- Costs (42 percent) followed by business culture (25 percent) were identified as the top barriers to adoption of Software-Defined Data Centers
Beyond costs, another significant challenge to organizations looking to adopt newer technologies is culture. This issue is apparent when examining the results of the IDC Asia/Pacific Transformative Infrastructure Index, which showed strong “interest” around a myriad of new technologies, and lesser focus on the execution of a business-aligned strategic IT projects. While many would argue that this issue stems from insufficient funds, this ‘lack of funds’ can also be attributed to “attitude”. If there is greater alignment of the IT projects to measurable business outcomes, then the ability of organizations to find the necessary funds to deliver on some of these capabilities will increase.
Supporting businesses in their mission to improve efficiency and costs, VMware also recently announced its latest in end-user computing and new wave of cloud management offerings and capabilities for the hybrid cloud including the VMware Horizon® FLEX™, VMware vRealize™ Suite 6, VMware vRealize Code Stream™ and VMware vRealize Air™ Compliance.
The VMware Solutions Symposium Malaysia event also showcased VMware’s latest technologies and solutions:
Software-Defined Data Center: The software-defined data center is the strategy and future for Malaysian businesses’ journey to building the software-defined enterprise. The platform offers an ideal architecture in which all resources are fully virtualized and made available via private, public, and hybrid cloud, and delivers the peak of flexibility, efficiency, agility, control and choice for IT and the business.
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure: VMware EVO: RAIL™ jumpstarts a customer’s journey to the software-defined data center. The appliance removes the burden of integration, optimization, configuration, testing, installation and on-going management, upgrading and patching from IT teams.
Network Virtualization: VMware NSX™ is the network virtualization and security platform for the software-defined data center. NSX brings virtualization to enterprises’ existing network and transforms network operations and economics.
Software-Defined Storage: VMware Virtual SAN™ automatically and dynamically matches requirements with underlying storage resources. With Virtual SAN, many manual storage tasks are automated – delivering a more efficient and cost-effective operational model.
Open Cloud Technology: The VMware Integrated OpenStack™ solution enables IT organizations to quickly and cost effectively deliver developer-friendly OpenStack APIs and tools on top of their existing VMware infrastructure. They can provide API-driven infrastructure for internal developers, and repatriate workloads from unmanageable and unsecure clouds. IT can manage and troubleshoot an OpenStack cloud with the same familiar VMware tools they already use, providing significant operational cost savings and faster time-to-value.