C4 Marine Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Nally - KMI Media Group

Virtualizingthe Future
as the mIlItary moves strongly to “vIrtual” systems to aChIeve Cost savIngs and
greater Control, Industry exPerts examIne the Challenges and oPPortunItIes.
Technology, like the battlefields of
Afghanistan and Iraq, is constantly changing
and evolving. Successful CIOs and
commanders adapt and embrace change
and innovate in response. Server virtualization
has been around for over 35 years
and was brought to the mainstream Intel
x86-market in the late 1990s. Today it
has permeated into all aspects of IT, from
the servers to desktops as well as mobile
devices. The increased adoption can be
directly traced to the benefits of increased
efficiency, greater flexibility and increased
speed of action.
According to the website IT Dashboard
Information (it.usaspending.gov),
the Department of Defense is planning
on spending approximately $36 billion
on IT in 2011. Of that number, about
$23 billion is being categorized as IT
maintenance. That means that less than
40 percent is being spent on innovation.
With DoD facing tighter budgets, department
and agency CIOs are looking for
ways to increase the innovation side of
the equation.
Increased efficiency and cost savings
are by-products of virtualization—fewer
devices means less energy and space consumed
by heating and cooling systems as
well as reduced rack space. This reduction
allows an increase in production by packing
more punch into the same space, be it
onboard a submarine, an aircraft, a ship
or Humvee. Examples include the Distributed
Common Ground System-Army,
where a reduction of six to one on the
number of severs shipped translates into
less inter-theater airlift and less fuel con-
(Editor’s Note: Military Information Technology recently posed the following question to some of the
leading companies in the field of network systems: What benefits and potential drawbacks do you see in the
current military drive toward server, desktop and other forms of virtualization? Following are their responses.)
Flexibility and Speed
By David Hunter, Chief Technology Officer
VMWare
The increased adoption of server virtualization can be
directly traced to the benefits of increased efficiency,
greater flexibility and increased speed of action.
sumption. Other secondary effects include
reducing generators fuel requirements,
which manifests into reduced risk to
sailors, soldiers, Marines and airmen by
reduced demand for fuel convoys.
For any commander, the ability to
remain flexible is paramount in order
to take advantage of the opportunities
presented in the battlespace. For CIOs,
the old days of rigid, lengthy IT deployments
are a thing of the past with fully
virtualized infrastructures. Virtualization
provides the ability to rapidly deploy new
instances of existing applications based on
demand. This provision is now measured
in hours versus weeks. Upgrading and
patching of operating systems is simplified,
as well as the ability to more quickly
rebase line applications to a previously
known safe state is realized.
On the pace of execution front, the
question for CIOs and commanders is not
if the network is going to be attacked, but
how do we operate in an environment that
is not 100 percent assured. In a virtualized
environment, the speed at which the
infrastructure can be deployed and rearranged
is vastly greater than in a physical
world. This translates directly into
an increase in confidence of networked
assets. This applies equally to server, desktop
and mobile virtualization. Having the
ability to quickly re-establish a potentially
compromised coalition network without
the requirement to provision from the
ground up will provide a clear advantage.
According to a leading research firm,
in 2009 the number of applications being
deployed on virtual machines exceeded
those on new physical hardware. Combine
this with the appetite users have for consuming
new applications and services for
mobile devices, and the logical question
is: How does virtualization help?
The current proliferation of new enduser
devices that are tending to be more
mobile in nature will be a challenge.
Think about how many servicemembers
are carrying two or more phone devices
today. The ability to provide unambiguous
access from any end-point device,
securely and efficiently, will be enabled by
virtualization of these devices. Imagine a
virtualized, multi-domain mobile tablet
similar to today’s collapsed multi-domain
desktop analyst workstation, which is a
reality today because of virtualization.
As with all innovation and change,
there are challenges and adjustments in
thinking that is required in order to
achieve optimal success. CIOs and commanders
alike need to focus on simplified
management structures and balancing
access versus security in a virtualized
environment. With the innovation around
ease of creation, the temptation to create
because you can is there. This is known as
“VM sprawl.” Without effective, simplified
management frameworks and policies,
VM sprawl can escalate out of control
quickly. Think about what happens when
servicemembers’ mobile devices are virtualized
and what it will be like when each
of those cell phones will have multiple
VMs on them. Getting a handle on the
management, oversight and configuration
control is a challenge that needs to
be addressed.
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