Recently I wrote a short story about "virtualization". Feedback was that it made a really complicated subject a bit simpler to understand. One reader, Shyam Verma, a software specialist from South Carolina, offered a reflection about the subject that I thought it was relevant and well expressed. He put virtualization in a very broad context of what is going on in the world of information technology. With Shyam’s permission, I am sharing his thoughts here.
"I try to understand the new world we live in where information integration is crucial to the success of business. We need a unified view of people, processes and technology. There is so much information and so little knowledge. The data that companies keep and use is constantly growing. The data can become useless or a liability if not used properly. It can consume valuable bandwidth and computing resources inadvertently. Universal connectivity, which is a good thing, can also become the ultimate source of discomfort because of security, privacy, identity, authenticity and accidental or malicious threats. Now we have new challenges to deal with. I see a secure virtualized computing environment as the next logical step. Reduce complexity by aggregating all computing resources and then manage them centrally. In essence we are going back in time and recreating a system 390 or an MVS operating system with one exception – it is open and standards based architecture where qualified improvements from any source can be incorporated and new values can be brought to industry, government, healthcare and businesses of all kinds. We can also create new solutions based on the technologies used for big businesses and tailor them to small and medium businesses".
