For some I agree that it is going to be harder to justify VMware costs in the future (but it really does help to drive costs down). I believe there is a major importance of Windows 8 and Linux in the future. However I do believe from the infrastructure arena that the virtualization layer will be a major component to get companies to the Cloud. The future of technology is Clouds (hybrid/private/public) which is compute, networking, and storage as shared services which is the cornerstone of virtualization.
VMware’s virtualization is the Key to all of the technology advances of the last 10 years. VMware is closely tied to all of the cores, Server, IP network and Storage. I currently do think that the vApps and security components need a lot of work. To have full integration of virtual apps (virtual/cloud aware apps) well less just say we are a long ways from that.
VMware is the “cornerstone” of the architecture tying all other needed components together (Server Core, IP Core, Storage Core and IO Engines (IE - Microsoft, Linux, AIX, etc). It is the product that spans all datacenters within a true enterprise.
VMware is the component that makes Microsoft useful and effective for IO engines and end users. As well as geographically dispersed datacenters with Geo and Intra Datacenter load balancing and spanned IP networks with Active - Active workload between datacenters (IE: OTV or VXLAN (not ready yet)). Virtualization will help get us out of the ‘4 walls” of the datacenter as we need to eliminate the limits\constraints of a single physical network. We need for datacenters to be more agile.
Microsoft\Windows is now only a small component of the datacenter IO engine layer. The need for Microsoft/Windows Clustering is small to none now that Hardware HA (VMware, IBM, HP, and Cisco) is so fast. PLUS: Now that we have Virtual Load Balancers within the industry that maintain 100% uptime within a single datacenter and across geographically dispersed datacenters “clustering” is just an abstracted term used to indicate a SERVICE.
I have always had the skills and mind set of - Future Vision/Technical/Business Oriented = Provide technical knowledge to add value to the business as you lead them to more/bigger business (faster). I will continue to grow my Cloud knowledge and help others with this new technology.
My belief is the OS (whichever that may be) is the IO engine for business applications. So the OS will be closer to the business as opposed to an infrastructure layer. The business applications live within the OS at this time and the foreseeable future. I also believe the business’ belief in relation to infrastructure components is “it should just run”.
These are only my opinions and do not reflect anyone or any company's opinion or view - Ronald Barefield