Cloud Computing Depends on Virtualization

A new research project from IBM shows just how much cloud computing -- the basis for future IT services -- depends on virtualization.

Big Blue today announced plans to join The Georgia Institute of Technology and The Ohio State University in a project to create so-called autonomic management tools for virtualized data centers.

"The research is focused on developing 'new' autonomic technologies that can be applied to virtual data centers, the underlying architecture of the cloud model," states IBM spokesman Lon Levitan in an email to Byte and Switch.

IBM already has a slew of products it labels autonomic. These include the IBM Tivoli Enterprise Console, the IBM Virtualization Engine, and an IBM Autonomic Computing Toolkit for developers, to name just a few.

What is autonomic, you may ask, and how does it differ from simple data center automation?'Autonomic' refers really to the 'autonomic nervous system' versus, say, the brain itself. It describes where there is machine self-learning and machine healing," says analyst Dennis Drogseth of Enterprise Management Associates. "So it’s ultimately a subset of the broader requirements for process automation."

IBM plans to build just such a self-healing, autonomic cloud linking the two universities in a Critical Enterprise Cloud Computing Services (CECCS) network. To set this up, IBM has donated IBM BladeCenter H chassis running HS21 servers, IBM System Storage DS3400 arrays, networking equipment, and software that includes IBM Tivoli, WebSphere and Information Management.

Another element will also be added by IBM: virtualization software. IBM will use XenSource in this project.

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