Definitely a new look at the world of virtualization and the challenges that come with it. There is really no question that it is going to be a lot of work to get it work just as we’d like to see it. But I think it can happen.

There are only a few markets ideally suited for virtualization. One of them is software development. As the scene is usually painted, the developer sits at his or her desk, compiles new software, and launches it in a virtual machine so that when it crashes, it doesn’t take the whole box down.

We hear of developers who keep a Linux instance open on Windows, or vice-versa, either for the sake of cross-platform productivity or to strike a blow for religious freedom.

But as long as virtualization is viewed as a tool of convenience for individual developers, IT is not likely to stay very excited about it. The larger reality is, once we get to the point where we can assume that virtualization is a standard component of every OS, major changes with bottom-line impact will take place miles away from any one developer’s desk.

As a former developer, I get excited about it. Now that I know I can do with virtualization what I always wished I could, I can’t imagine architecting, developing, or doing QA on SOA and other distributed solutions of scale without virtualization as a core OS component on every machine my solution might touch…. Source: InfoWorld

Tags: developers, soa, myth, virtualization