Virtualization is More than Virtual Machine Software By Dan Kusnetzky, Principal Analyst Overview It is clear to those who have explored the topic of virtualization technology that it encompasses far more than just virtual machine software, such as VMware ESX Server, XenSource XenEnterprise or Microsoft Virtual Server. Over the last 30 years, virtualization technology has been developed to enhance how individuals access computing solutions, how applications are developed and deployed, how they are processed, where and how they are stored, how systems communicate with one another, and, of course, how an extended system environment can be made both secure and manageable. This broad view is very important if an organization hopes to make optimal use of this technology. Somewhere along the way, many in the industry have come to believe that virtualization is merely the use of virtual machine software. This rather narrow view of virtualization is based upon the view that the whole purpose of virtualization is to encapsulate an operating system and a whole stack of software enabling an application or Web service to run. Virtual machine software then makes it possible for one or more of these "capsules" to run simultaneously on a single machine. While this viewpoint is useful if the goals were only consolidating an existing application portfolio onto a smaller number of systems, cost reduction, cost avoidance or making it easier to deploy systems for new tasks, it is not as useful if the organization is seeking higher levels of performance, greater levels of scalability, greater agility, high levels of reliability and availability or being able to manage their physical and virtual resources in a uniform way. Virtual machine software, after all, is only one of five virtual processing functions. Virtual processing is one of seven layers of virtualization technology. Decision