Phil Dewey

Will Virtualization Undermine Network Equipment Vendors?

Comparing VOIP's impact on the network to Virtualization is not valid. VOIP put new, real time stresses on the network. Virtualization removes them from the LAN and puts them potentially on the WAN. The idea that there will be a valid use case for moving a VM across a wide distance is goofy (much less a running VM). Data will move the, VMs will stay where they are. Taking advantage of cheaper compute resources elsewhere will mean getting a COPY of a VM to materialize at the lowest cost facility and the data there to use it.
One won't move a VM but rather a description of it, a formula of how to construct it and the data it needs to do it's job.

The Tipping Point for Network Automation

What this means of course is that automation at the network layer is done before it gets started as the cloud provider will do that with his labor costs baked into the price of a VM. The next big thing will be automating the care an feeding of a vast sea of VMs. Fortunately the technology lends itself to this. It will be the small virtual data center and data center automation vendors who take the day here.