Virtual Appliance Slow on the Uptake

Virtualization has been a hot topic this year, but Network World reported yesterday that few companies have begun to adopt virtual appliances in place of the appliances they use to run their IT infrastructure.

From Network World:

In the virtual appliance model, developers package applications with an operating system to run as either a hardware or software appliance. "The value proposition is so clear cut from vendor and customer perspectives. We build, you install, it works," says Bernard Golden, CEO of HyperStratus, an advanced IT consulting firm. "I thought virtual appliances would be a big deal, taking off really fast, but they haven't."

But even if companies do start adopting virtual appliances, Network World also has a warning for IT administrators:

As great as these plug-and-play solutions can be, Boucher says users do need to be careful about file size. "A virtual appliance package can get pretty large, so being able to manage that closely is important."

Likewise when vendors turn the physical into the virtual, Metzler warns. "You need to know how to manage and secure these, and how they're going to perform."