Sadly, technologists and IT people are not beyond buying into fads. A fad is basically a temporarily enhanced interest in some aspect of a market, or a product, or a technology.
Fads pass. The repercussions of buying into fads can be … well … significant. So can the problem of missing the boat … not on fads, but fads that develop legs and become, effectively, movements, groundswells, or even disruptive technologies.
At DrunkenData, the author takes a realistic view of a fad that gained legs, and is now disruptive … well … to large server vendors.
What impresses me is his view on these fads. To wit …
Bottom line: To me, information technology is not a belief system. Product selection and architecture are supposed to be grounded on empirical science.
Yeah, I agree. Trouble is, people have their favorite vendors. And this gets in the way of a reasonable evaluation of empirical or testable data. Worse, many vendors have checkboxes rather than functional products.
Server virtualization products today seem to be continuing some of the negatives of traditional server software: overstating capabilities, releasing products before they are ripe, requiring specialty drivers to work with peripheral gear, etc. As with any new technology, I expect to see lower cost with better service levels before I abandon how I do things today.
and his view of the frothing-at-the-mouth marketing is refreshing
I disagree with the hype around most server virtualization products. They are just that ??? products. Whenever a product marketeer starts insisting that you need a ???[insert product name] strategy??? and that his wares are ???not just a product, but a movement,??? my bullshit meter goes on high alert.
I am sold. Gonna add this to my blogroll and recommended reading list.
It is rare you see so honest a set of views these days.
More to the point, he does a good job of dissecting a fad into the important essential elements. Virtualization is a fad that developed legs. It has value, and will help lower standup costs of new infrastructure. It will alter designs of existing infrastructure to enable it better.
But it is not the be-all and end-all of computing.
And you can take these same thoughts and apply these to other fads. Clouds, grids before them. Dedup. etc. Some have legs, all have elements of value, few are really game changing.
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