Thinking Virtual , moving from 2010 to 2011.

It is 2010, almost 2011. This year at VMworld the message was as much or more cloud that it was in 09. But I often find my self, am I thinking virtual?

Let's back up, what is it to think virtual, by looking at the term as it is defined.

"
The term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also, differing denotations.
The term has been defined in philosophy as "that which is not real" but may display the salient qualities of the real. Colloquially, 'virtual' is used to mean almost, particularly when used in the adverbial form e.g. "That's virtually [almost] impossible""

Well, that is no help at all, what I mean in this case, is when looking at a project, or a  problem, do I think phyiscal in the sense, of application, desktop, server, or am I thinking about current methods? ( virtual )

Today, I am running Physical desktop's, when my anti virus needs a subscription update, do I think about the fact that if I deploy view, in the future, I might need to reevaluate my anti virus? When I talk to a vendor about firewall's, do I ask if they have a plans to make a VMware appliance? When I talk to a Security vendor about IPS / IDS , do I ask how it works if my servers are virtualized, or even desktop's?

Are the software devloper's thinking virtual? Are the people making insurance software thinking virtual, banking software? What about Healthcare, are the EMR, EHR developer's thinking virtual?

Without them on board, what kind of challenges does something like vCD in the future?

Maybe, no one else stuggles to shake the troditional Physical world, who knows?

My thoughts are, that to move forward in 2010, and move into 2011, we need to align our thinking, as we align disks in the storage world.

I would like people's commends and views please.


Roger L.