Virtualisation is widely regarded as a major emerging technology. How does it apply to Africa, and can the continent benefit socially and economically from growth in this sector?
The term ‘virtualisation’ is little more than a buzzword for the abstraction of IT capacity from a number of isolated machines to a single server-based architecture which delivers resources to remote desktops.
In other words, it centralises the IT infrastructure of an organisation by allowing workers or participants to access information, applications and their desktops from a host server.
Although virtualisation is not an entirely new technology it has only recently begun to gather steam within the modern IT environment. Nonetheless, several analysts have tipped it as the technology to watch within enterprise level IT over the next few years.
Virtualisation offers a number of benefits within the African context, not only from a business perspective but also as a possible solution to the continent’s issues with geographic connectivity, educational hurdles and challenges in the health, governmental and infrastructure sectors.
Within an enterprise IT environment the benefits are numerous. Through the consolidation of many machines and operating systems into one server based platform businesses are able to reap costing benefits through the lowering of capital expenditure as well as maintenance and energy. Put simply, virtualisation allows a major corporation to generate 10 000 virtual desktops as opposed to purchasing 10 000 individual PCs, saving on IT work hours and delivering a single point of administration.
There are numerous forms of virtualisation within the company structure. These include server virtualisation, desktop virtualisation and application virtualisation – all of which deliver respective benefits to the organisation. Primarily, virtualisation focuses on and enables the organisation to save on power and space within the data centre, reducing operating costs as a result.
In some cases, clients are able to outsource data centre needs completely as a result of virtualisation technology, which in turn allows the company to focus on what it does best without the hassle of costly IT overheads and the problems associated with this.
Desktop virtualisation is also an obvious strategy to overcome the hurdle of renewing thousands of software licenses. Instead of working through thousands of individual desktops, an IT department is able to install a single image of an operating system or business application such as Windows 7 in the datacentre, delivering access to the platform to each employee via a remote desktop.
With the increase in work from home employees, or telecommuters, in business today, virtualisation can also serve as mitigation for data loss. Simply put, an employee working in a virtualised environment from a remote location is constantly updating and backing up files to a safe and secure server based on a server farm or at the company premises. In the event of a hardware malfunction, all of the employee’s data is retrievable, resulting in an overall increase in productivity.
A centralised data collection system, such as that found in the virtualised environment, also offers an effective resource from which companies can monitor productivity and ensure targets are being met. This, when coupled with the kind of advanced business analytics systems that IBM currently offers, can be automatically delivered to management without the need for extensive HR staff and additional man hours spent interpreting the data.
Where virtualisation really shines through is when a company is required to tackle the issue of a distributed workforce. This offers a solution for businesses with multiple branches, travelling employees or far flung task teams who all need access to the same functionality and applications regardless of their position. Although network capacity and access to connectivity is a determining factor in how one accesses a virtualised platform, the technology is scaleable and can be altered to deliver a workable service to every employee.
This holds weight for virtualisation in the African context. Although the continent is undergoing significant growth, particularly in the Sub Saharan region, the geographical distance between major economic hubs and the lack of access to copper or fibre based connectivity and basic infrastructure is a great challenge with regards to connecting the African community from a business but also a general perspective.
The scaleability of virtualisation from a costing and connectivity point of view makes it the obvious answer to the question of how to connect remote parts of Africa to the rest of the world. It is widely known that a significant portion of the continent now has access to internet connectivity through the use of second and third generation mobile networks. When coupled with basic devices such as a tablet PC or cost effective netbook, virtualisation could deliver a centralised platform to even the most remote sections of the continent.
Such a suggestion holds a number of implications for education, healthcare, local government as well as business.
For example, through the use of virtualisation remote villages may gain access to an educational mainframe which would allow teachers to plan classes, download new study material, track their student’s progress and discuss problems with other educators. By the same token, students might be able to use virtualisation to access school books, study for test and exams and be given assistance from teachers on the other side of the continent.
From a health perspective, doctors may be able to use virtualisation to track and update patient records in far flung or hard to reach areas, interpret medical data with the help of a centralised database or give follow up assistance and advice to villages without ever being present in the flesh.
Local and national government in Africa could also benefit greatly from the application of virtualisation to daily processes. This would allow national government to monitor constituencies to ensure that productivity is being maintained and even to stamp out corruption through the regular monitoring of financial records on a municipal level.
It’s clear that, if applied effectively, virtualisation can exist not only as a cost saving productivity measure for businesses but also as a solution to a number of uniquely African social and economic issues. Indeed, with the help of international aid and a clear development policy Africa could become one of the first case studies ever for the benefit of virtualisation and virtualised platforms for economic benefit as well as social change.
By: Sean Wainer, Country Manager for Citrix Systems SA
