the Future of Work

Etelos and Virtual Servers

by Danny Kolke
published on: 09/25/08 11:14:11 AM

The world of computing is constantly evolving and speculation is always a part of it. Today, I read some interesting pieces as a result of last week's VM World conference. I also took a call with someone who attended VM World and made the statement, "Etelos is hot! While everyone else is talking about cloud computing, and the future of virtualization, Etelos is delivering end-user apps for businesses."

How true.

Well, How true is it?

Let me digress for a bit and start with the extremely practical. There are predictions that virtualized server installations are going to outnumber regular installations. While that may seem like a bold prediction, I would venture to say that the pragmatist in me wonders what they are counting. Are they counting the host instances? Or are they counting the virtualized servers? For example, I can buy a server and install virtualization software on it. That is one instance. On that same instance, I can install 100 virtual servers. Am I calling that 100 installations or one?

If I compare one against the other, then this is an obvious prediction. Almost to the level of the very infamous trick question I have asked my 2nd grader, "What is heavier, a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?"

So let's move beyond the obviousness of this and into where it really matters. To a user of technology, virtualization promises to reduce the cost of managing infrastructure to the point where more competitive solutions can be delivered upon the base systems.

What does this mean for Etelos?

Hang on, I have some more to say to lay the ground work. 

Today I read this article: Virtualization: The race is on to corner the market

"Most of the servers installed next year will be virtualized from the outset, experts have said. But, as the technology goes mainstream, will moves by Microsoft be enough to dislodge VMware from its place at the top of the tree?Virtualization is perhaps the hottest topic in IT at the moment. The technology was already making strides with the promise to cut up to three-quarters of server-room hardware and energy costs, before Microsoft weighed in and the hype shot off the scale." (emphasis mine)

I think the bigger trend is that Microsoft is following, not leading. A trend in their behavior that I suspect you will see more of when it comes to the totality of the world of software and where it's going (ie. I have heard more rumors about the future of Microsoft and Open Source, and Microsoft and more Web Enabled Apps and Web App Distribution).

Back to Etelos

Etelos distributes Web Apps. When I am getting technical, I like to say that "Etelos is, under the hood, a Web App distribution platform." Users go to our Web site, browse the Etelos Web App Marketplace and select apps. When they check out, "magic happens." The factory starts and bells and whistles go off. Code is moved from an app repository to a server somewhere on the planet with configuration instructions to install, setup requirements to optimize that app, license it, bill for it and more. This is a real-world implementation of utilizing distributed computing to deliver a solution that an every day businesses can use.

In the Etelos Web App distribution platform, we package, license, bill, configure, deploy and scale solutions to meet the needs of a business looking for a business solution.

In an early attempt to adopt virtualization technology, and grid computing, and cloud computing, and the list goes on; we have learned many things. We have been disappointed by grids that don't distribute resources across machines. We have been disappointed by virtualized instances that don't share resources on the host machine. We have been disappointed by hosts that crash and can't handle specific linux distributions. So what have we done with virtualization?

For the most part, Etelos stayed away from other solutions because they weren't ready for prime time. Customers in the business market didn't like the instability other solutions created. So, Etelos built its unique app distribution methodology and shared facilities management utilizing accepted practices for securely partitioning and sharing resources and installing apps on those resources. In fact, that's what Etelos has been doing now for years.

Now What?

For the past year, Etelos has been testing app distribution of Virtual Environments built on top of the Etelos Management System (EMS), we call them EVEs (short for Etelos Virtual Environments). When combined with the Web App distribution platform that Etelos provides, the Etelos Web App Marketplace now fuels an exciting mechanism for delivering practical business solutions. 

For the most part, virtualization doesn't deliver for us the promises that others are talking about. In fact, our virtualized instances are more expensive to deliver than that of our previous distribution models. What virtualization delivers us is more options to package different OS instances and competitive technologies that we didn't have the time to support before. Virtualization with the Etelos Web App distribution platform enables more solutions to migrate ad be deployed on demand in a SaaS model. So we can now offer customers and partners more versions of solutions. Additionally, we can offer different levels of service and quality control over the delivery of the Web Apps.

I like to say that in my business the customer usually gets what they are asking for. More solutions, more choices, more quality, more integration, more Web Apps.

Closing thought?

In another article on ZDnet I read the headline, VMware vs Microsoft: Place your bets

I say let them battle it out. There is real work to be done to deliver solutions now to customers who are looking to solve business problems with business software delivered via the Web. 

Customers want more Web Apps, developers want servers deployed as a service to do rapid development. They want it cheaper per instance than the time to market costs of setting up conventional solutions.

With the Etelos Marketplace and Web App distribution platform, we can deliver that.

So what is better to deliver that than a Web site that's a Web App Marketplace where I can pick server instances and other Web Apps and add them to my cart, check out, and "magic happens?"

To quote Michael, I'm feeling "Hot!" today. ;)

Relevent Tags: Opportunity Computing   developers   Software as a Service   utility computing   Virtualization   Virtual Servers   marketplace