Features

THE NEXT PHASE OF VIRTUALISATION

Published

10 years ago

June 14, 2015

admin

Updated : August 24, 2014 04:45 pm,
By Editor

The next leg of the journey is to port mission critical workloads to virtualized infrastructure.

Consolidation and automation of their IT infrastructures are what customers are seeking to make their Business processes and services more effective and virtualization has been a means to that. To take the process further, Virtualisation must extend to the domain of the mission crucial Business applications.

Historically, the challenges in moving Mission critical applications to virtual infrastructures have been about high availability, predictable performance and security primarily. There are however solutions available that help customers tide over these challenges by testing and validating infrastructure performance as well as troubleshoot issues that arise in the test phase.

While Virtualization deployments in the region are no longer confined to only the commodity workloads, the instances of virtualizing mission critical workloads are still in the early stages but are showing an increase. Most of the virtualisation deployments continues to be limited to servers and systems.

Feras Abu Aladous, Manager, Systems Engineering, Services & Support at Brocade says, “Many Enterprises in the region are targeting virtualization of up to 90% of their servers and systems, to increase Server’s utilization efficiency, increase mobility, orchestration agility. A reduced number of physical servers require reduced space and cooling inside the datacenter which leads to cost savings as well.”

Companies in the region are definitely starting to virtualise business critical applications at a rapid rate opines Gregg Petersen, Regional Director Middle East & SAARC at Veeam Software. He adds, “In some instances we are seeing banks deploying on a virtual workload, however the Middle East region is in the infancy stages of this compared to USA and Europe. But, there is definitely a huge move towards virtualisation of these core applications.”

Operational agility is a key reason driving Businesses to head into the next phase of virtualization. The next leg of the journey is to port the more difficult workloads to virtualized infrastructure.

“We believe most of the technical barriers to virtualization of these more difficult workloads have already been resolved, and it is already becoming mainstream to virtualize across the board. We are seeing different factors driving the virtualization of these database and “big iron” workloads though. In the first phase of virtualization customers were focused on consolidation of “easy workloads.” For this next phase, they are much more focused on operational agility and speed of time-to-market. So IT departments that virtualize all of their workloads tend to do so because they want to offer a cloud utility experience to their lines of business – this is no longer just about asset cost avoidance,” says Aaron White General Manager, Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, Hitachi Data Systems.

Over the past few years, other hypervisors have gained ground while VMware’s Hyper V still dominates by far in terms of x86 server virtualization infrastructure with Microsoft a distance second. Hyper-V has constantly improved and added more features to compete with VMware and gain market share while there are other competitors including Citrix’s XenServer that carries no licensing charge, the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor (REVH) etc that have smaller market share.

The focus has however shifted away from hypervisors to innovations around the Management layers above the hypervisor.

Aaron says, “We have started to see them, but this tends to be within System Integrators and Service Providers’ landscape rather than in the traditional internal enterprise IT. The reason for this is a “leveling-up” of the capabilities of the hypervisor. So whereas in the past there was clear white space between ESX, the leading hypervisor, and Hyper-V / OpenStack, we have now seen that the hypervisor layer is becoming commoditized over time. And customers are starting to focus more on the management layers above it. We tend to see customers introducing at a “second hypervisor,” because they are looking at leveraging the merits of a specific management ecosystem, rather than because the specific hypervisor brings differentiation.

Enterprises mostly stick with one virtualization vendor to reduce cost of operational expenses but that is beginning to change. Customers are looking for best functionalities as some workloads do perform better on some hypervisors vis-à-vis others.

Greg says, “We are witnessing many cases where customers order Veeam Software – both hyper-V and VMware in large quantities. This tells us that customers are utilising the best of both worlds. Generally, we see a lot of production environments on VMware and hyper-V and this is where Veeam plays a crucial role because we have the ability to provide the best of both worlds. In addition we have also seen a large amount of deployment in business critical applications with hyper-V and VMware, once again proving that multi-hypervisor environments are becoming more common.”

Multi-hypervisor environments bring along its own set of challenges and therefore there could be customers sticking with one hypervisor. However, cross platform management will be a reality that needs to be taken in stride for those who are willing to look at the best of the options.

Aaron argues, “The downside of that is that managing two hypervisors increases your operational overhead – you need to have two sets of operational and integration processes. This is why it mainly occurs within the System Integrator space – they have the organizational economies of scale that can make it cost effective. We have also seen this drive an interest in converged platforms such as Hitachi’s Unified Compute Platform. This platform takes care of all the workflow required to integrate and manage everything from the hardware elements up to the hypervisor. As it supports both VMware and Hyper-V, it frees customers up to focus on business workflow “above the hypervisor” and is a key enabler for this new trend in Infrastructure as a Service.”

The datacenter

In the datacenter Server virtualization has seen widespread adoption and continues to be the primary focus of virtualization efforts. With the increasing adoption of virtualized computing infrastructure, enterprises are able to run multiple servers on the same equipment, reducing the demand for additional servers. As a result, data centers are becoming smarter and supporting more users than ever before while requiring less hardware to do all of this.

Feras says, “Virtualization is the major trend inside the data centers; and it’s expected that by the end of 2014 around 70% of Server workload will be virtualized, but Storage and Network virtualization is still very low.”

Virtualization in other domains is still growing at a modest pace and would be the focus in the second phase. Virtualized infrastructure offers the potential for higher productivity, scalability and manageability compared to traditional computing which is what customers are in pursuit of as they allow virtualization to get deeper into their networks.

Aaron says, “We would consider server virtualization to be pretty well advanced – we’re about 90% there, and are just about tying up loose ends with it. People are now looking to technical innovations in network and storage virtualization, as well as the management ecosystem to provide the next level of agility and efficiency.”

Automation would be a key objective going forward in the datacenter. An effective virtualization strategy lays down the framework for more automation of regular tasks and this enables greater efficiency with available computing resources.

Greg says, “There is a lot of buzz around automation in the datacentre at the moment. Over the last three years virtualisation has moved from 30 – 40% to 60 – 70%. Most of our customers are about 60% virtualised. As organisations become mature in virtualisation, automation will continue to become an important aspect for companies.”

There are bottlenecks along the way for a wider adoption of virtualization. For instance, there are some very mature technology offerings in the Storage Virtualization space but significant differences between individual vendor strategies are slowing down adoption, believes Aaron.

He comments, “Most vendors still sell separate storage virtualization appliances, whereas Hitachi has integrated storage virtualization capabilities into every enterprise storage array that we have sold for the last ten years. And our customers have now leveraged this during several transition events to virtualize legacy assets and accelerate transformation. So we believe pretty strongly that Storage Virtualization just needs to be an integrated feature of every storage controller in order to gain broader adoption.”

He also believe that applications are still too tightly coupled to physical storage assets and physical locations.

Aaron adds, “This is the next wave of value-add from Storage Virtualization, and it is why we have invested in Storage Virtualization OS, which will enable us to run a common storage virtualization platform across all of our storage hardware containers. We also believe that customers will move to active/active architectures and have introduced distributed Virtual Storage Machines which can live forever, delivering zero downtime during site disaster recovery and non-disruptive technology refresh.”

On the other hand SDN (software defined networking) has still had very limited adoption and there are a lot of competing standards at the transport virtualization and management control layers. There are also strong requirements for a more integrated approach between the management frameworks for SDN and Network Function Virtualization.

“We believe that the benefits in terms of total cost to provision new services are so substantial that we will see very active investment for these use cases in the short term within the SI and Service Provider space. Once this technology is proven in this arena it will become more common in tradition enterprise IT.

SMB adoption

Virtualistion technologies suit growing SMB Businesses as well as the already large sized customers. In fact Virtualisation helps dynamically scale up capabilities of a Business’s IT infrastructure and this is a trend seen in the case of companies who are looking to add more virtual servers.

Greg says, “SMB clients are definitely adopting virtualisation and we can see this with our customers. We are seeing companies who have up to 10 servers and instead of putting it on physical servers they are recognising the need to virtualise. It’s a trend that is rapidly increasing and more and more customers are realising the value in adopting virtualisation.”

There is better understanding among SMB Businesses that Virtualisation will help them not only manage costs of upgrading IT infrastructure but also improve critical tasks like data backups and high availability.

Feras says, “SMB market is considering virtualization more than ever. SMBs are trying to get more performance and flexibility out of their existing server resources, considering the rising cost of managing physical data centers. Server virtualization improves disaster recovery and high availability allowing administrators to take VM snapshots, and recover from existing snapshots, and reduces the number of required servers to implement solutions.

However, SMBs have limited exposure to Virtualistion benefits within their networks and largely confined to only server consolidation. Enterprises on the other hand are more focused on optimizing the benefits across and therefore adopt innovations faster.

Aaron says, “We’ve seen large enterprises that are much more virtualized than SMBs. In fact, the most virtual organizations are the ones who are process-driven, focused, and committed to achieving efficiencies as a primary goal. Those who lag behind in the virtualization landscape the most are those who have taken some individual areas of the business, and run the IT departments for those sectors almost as pet projects. In addition, the SMB space tends to focus on Server Virtualization whereas SI’s and large enterprises have clear additional use cases that they can enable by deploying network and storage virtualization layers as well.”

Server virtualization will be the key driver of virtualisation market but for customers who have already gone through a first phase of virtualization, they will have the opportunity to look at tapping into other innovations from the virtualisation industry.

Aaron says, “Servers and to a certain extent storage virtualization too have seen growth. For networking it’s a bit of a different story – they’re not necessarily about consolidation they’re about programmability. Networking efficiency comes from bringing complex systems into a virtual, manageable space, and alleviating IT departments dependency on hardware segmentation and re-config.”

With virtualization, the utilization rates of the installed hardware has a huge jump. The ROI benefits are seen in a short time.

Greg says, “With server virtualisation the benefits are seen instantly. Storage and network virtualisation are yet to gain traction in this region compared to other regions. But, it’s just a matter of time before network and storage virtualisation takes off, because it’s cost effective and far more efficient.”

While most virtualized workloads are either server or desktop workloads, there is an increased interest in virtualizing network and application delivery etc.

Feras says, “Sever virtualization is the major trend in Data center virtualization and very mature, on the other hand network and storage virtualization is still under evaluation by enterprises, and not widely implemented.”

In summary, there are applications that are still ring-fenced from virtualization and while that percentage may begin to come down each year, even outside of that the scope for virtualization remains high. So while there is a huge variance among customers, the number of those that have virtualized the entire stack – server, storage and network is increasing rapidly. Further, while virtualization may not be seen as essential before adopting cloud computing, cloud deployments in virtual environments deliver optimized results and hence a key consideration factor for Businesses looking to adopt cloud services.

Features

Redefining Real Estate: The Rise of Wellness-Centric Spaces

Published

4 months ago

March 14, 2025

Integrator Web-Editor

By Mark Phoenix – CEO of Sankari

The way we think about real estate is evolving, and at the heart of this change is a renewed focus on wellness. As we become more aware of the profound impact our living environments have on our health and well-being, it’s clear that real estate must go beyond aesthetics and luxury—it must support a lifestyle of vitality and longevity. To me, true luxury is no longer defined solely by opulence but by spaces that promote health, balance, and connection.

The demand for wellness-oriented spaces is growing rapidly, and real estate developers must rise to meet it. Today’s buyers are looking for more than just high-end finishes and exclusive locations—they want environments that enhance their well-being. Integrating wellness features such as fitness centers, yoga studios, meditation areas, and holistic health services is no longer an option; it’s a necessity. These spaces don’t just add value to a property; they create communities that create physical health, mental clarity, and social engagement.

Wellness-centric design is about more than just adding amenities—it’s about creating environments that encourage movement, relaxation, and human connection. By prioritizing well-being in real estate, developers can offer residents a lifestyle that aligns with modern values and aspirations. These spaces cultivate a sense of belonging, allowing people to come together in ways that enrich their lives beyond the walls of their homes.

Beyond individual benefits, wellness-focused communities have a lasting impact on society. As more people seek out homes that support their health, the real estate industry has an opportunity to lead this cultural shift. Developments that incorporate sustainable materials, biophilic design, and eco-friendly building practices not only benefit residents but also contribute to a healthier planet.

In the ultra-luxury segment, this focus on wellness is especially meaningful. The most sought-after properties are no longer just about extravagance—they are about creating a sanctuary where people can rejuvenate both physically and mentally. True luxury lies in thoughtful, health-driven design that enhances everyday life in meaningful ways.

Designing for wellness also means partnering with visionary architects and designers who understand the importance of both form and function. In regions with challenging climates, for example, innovative solutions can help reduce environmental impact while enhancing comfort and efficiency. Securing sustainability certifications like LEED further reinforces a commitment to responsible development and aligns with the global movement toward eco-conscious living.

For me, integrating wellness into real estate is more than just a trend—it’s a deeply personal mission and a strategic imperative. The places we live should do more than just shelter us; they should actively contribute to our health and happiness. By embedding wellness into the very foundation of luxury real estate, we’re not just shaping beautiful spaces—we’re shaping better lives.

Features

We are bringing tradition to every table in just five minutes

Published

5 months ago

February 20, 2025

Integrator Web-Editor

Exclusive Interview with Ashvin Subramanyam, CEO International Business, Orkla India

In this exclusive interview, Ashvin Subramanyam, CEO of International Business at Orkla India, shares insights on the brand’s participation at Gulfood 2025 and its mission to blend tradition with innovation in the Middle East. With the launch of Eastern’s 5-Minute Breakfast range and a refreshed Arabic spice portfolio, Orkla IMEA is redefining convenience without compromising on authenticity.

What can we expect from Orkla IMEA’s presence at Gulfood 2025, and how significant is this event for your brand’s growth in the region?

At Gulfood 2025, Orkla IMEA, subsidiary of Orkla India, is set to make a strong impact by unveiling the Eastern 5-Minute Breakfast range, designed to bring the authentic flavors of Kerala to the fast-growing ready-to-cook market in the Middle East. In addition, visitors can expect a refreshed Arabic spice portfolio, reflecting Orkla India’s continued commitment to catering to the diverse culinary preferences of the region.

Gulfood is a key platform for us as it enables us to showcase our latest innovations to a global audience, including retailers, distributors, and food industry leaders. The Middle East is a strategic market for our expansion. By blending tradition with convenience, our goal through this event is to become a household name across diverse communities in the region, reinforcing our commitment to quality, authenticity, and innovation in packaged foods.

How does Gulfood help Orkla IMEA connect with new markets, consumers, and industry partners, particularly in the Middle East?

Gulfood serves as a vital gateway for Orkla India to connect with new markets, consumers, and industry partners through its subsidiary Orkla IMEA in the Middle East. As one of the world’s largest food and beverage trade exhibitions, it provides an unparalleled opportunity to engage directly with key stakeholders, including retailers, distributors, and hospitality businesses, facilitating strategic partnerships and market expansion.

For Orkla India, this event is instrumental in understanding regional consumer trends, preferences, and evolving dietary habits, particularly in the fast-growing packaged food sector. The launch of the Eastern 5-Minute Breakfast range and refreshed Arabic spice portfolio at Gulfood allows us to showcase our innovation in convenience-driven yet authentic culinary solutions.

By participating in Gulfood, we strengthen our brand presence, foster collaborations with regional partners, and position ourselves as a trusted name in ethnic and mainstream food categories. It’s a key milestone in our vision to become a household name in the Middle East.

Eastern is set to unveil its preservative-free quick South Indian 5-Minute Breakfast range. What was the inspiration behind this concept?

The Eastern 5-Minute Breakfast range was inspired by the growing need for convenient, time-saving meal solutions that do not compromise on authentic taste and quality. South Indian breakfasts, particularly Kerala’s traditional dishes, are deeply rooted in culture, requiring significant time and effort to prepare. However, with modern lifestyles becoming increasingly fast-paced, many consumers struggle to recreate these meals from scratch.

Recognizing this shift, Eastern set out to bridge the gap between tradition and convenience by crafting a range that retains the authentic flavours and textures of Kerala’s most-loved breakfasts while eliminating the long preparation time. The preservative-free formula ensures that consumers enjoy fresh, wholesome meals made from high-quality ingredients in just three easy steps, ready in five minutes.

With this innovation, Eastern empowers busy professionals, young families, and expatriates to stay connected to their culinary heritage without compromising on their schedules, making traditional breakfast accessible anytime, anywhere in just 5 minutes.

Can you give us an insight into the development process behind this 5-Minute Breakfast range, especially in maintaining authentic South Indian flavors without preservatives?

The development process for our 5-Minute Breakfast range began with a deep understanding of our consumers’ evolving lifestyles and their desire for authentic Kerala-style breakfasts that eliminate a lengthy preparation process. We identified a unique need-gap: while traditional dishes like Puttu, Appam, and Idiyappam are much-loved, the time and effort they require can be challenging in today’s fast-paced world.

Our journey involved benchmarking these dishes to the traditional methods used by homemakers, capturing the essence of how an amma would prepare them at home. This set the standard for the flavor profiles we aimed to achieve. The challenge was to replicate the authentic taste and texture while ensuring our products were preservative-free.

Our R&D team worked tirelessly, conducting extensive trials to balance authenticity and convenience. Through our innovation center we crafted recipes that retain the goodness of traditional Kerala breakfasts while being ready in just five minutes. With this range, Eastern redefines breakfast convenience, allowing families to savor the true flavors of Kerala in a fraction of time.

With over one million Keralites in the UAE, how does Eastern plan to cater to both the traditional tastes of this community and the broader multicultural audience?

With almost two million Keralites in the UAE, Eastern understands the deep emotional and cultural connection this community has with its traditional cuisine. The Eastern 5-Minute Breakfast range is designed to preserve the authentic flavours of Kerala while offering a convenient solution for modern lifestyles. By using high-quality ingredients and a preservative-free formula, the range ensures that the taste and texture remain true to tradition, making it an ideal choice for Malayalees longing for home-cooked meals.

While there are other instant and ready-to-eat options in the market, Eastern’s range stands out by offering dishes like Puttu and Palappam, which traditionally require culinary expertise and time-consuming preparation. These dishes are not widely available in the quick- convenience food category.

At the same time, Eastern is expanding its reach to a broader multicultural audience by showcasing South Indian cuisine as a flavourful, nutritious, and easy-to-prepare option for all. The simplicity of the 3 Easy Steps preparation makes these dishes accessible to non-South Indian consumers who are eager to explore new flavours. Through strategic retail partnerships, digital outreach and and aggressive in-store sampling, Eastern aims to introduce and establish South Indian breakfast as a preferred choice for consumers in this region.

What’s one thing about Orkla IMEA that people might not know but should?

While Orkla IMEA was incorporated recently, we have been in the region for over 25 years now, through our brand Eastern.

Features

2025 Hospitality Tech Trends

Published

5 months ago

February 12, 2025

Integrator Web-Editor

By Prince Thampi, Founder and CEO, Hudini

As we approach 2025, the hospitality industry is poised for transformational growth, driven by evolving traveller preferences and advancements in technology. The future of hospitality promises enhanced convenience, personalisation and sustainability, with a significant focus on creating memorable experiences for guests. Let’s dive into five key trends that will shape the hospitality tech landscape in 2025 and beyond.

The Continued Rise of Frictionless Technology

The increased demand for frictionless experiences is set to dominate the industry, with more and more travellers preferring hotels that offer touch-free check-in, check-out, and room access via mobile apps. This trend reflects a broader shift towards easy interactions powered by seamless digital integration. Mobile apps have been an essential tool for a few years now, enabling guests to manage their stays, order room service, and access hotel information effortlessly. With the introduction of Gen AI, those apps have become more powerful than ever and are now able to provide highly personalised recommendations and speak in different languages.

Hotels embracing this trend will gain a competitive edge, as tech-savvy travellers prioritise convenience and efficiency during their stay. According to a recent survey by Deloitte, around 72% of travellers are more likely to choose a hotel that offers mobile check-in and check-out services over those that don’t.

Hyper Personalised Guest Experiences

In 2025, personalisation will continue to be at the core of hospitality services but will finally be taken to the next level thanks to Gen AI. Guests expect hotels to anticipate their needs and offer tailored experiences, from customised room settings to personalised dining recommendations. Apps powered by AI are now able to predict guest needs based on a wealth of data, ingested from the hotel systems or fed externally.

Leveraging guest data and insights, hotels can create unique offerings that cater to individual preferences. This level of personalisation not only enhances guest satisfaction but also fosters loyalty and repeat bookings. According to Oracle’s findings, biometrics and AI are set to play pivotal roles, with 62% of guests valuing automated recognition for personalised interactions. Biometrics will experience a breakthrough into mainstream hospitality in 2025. Facial recognition technology has matured significantly and is ready to be weaved into the guest experience. It will enable better security and guest recognition while protecting their privacy at the same time.

AI-Enabled Customer Service

Artificial intelligence is revolutionising every aspect of the hospitality industry, but will be by itself a new way of providing customer service. Chatbots and virtual assistants are becoming standard tools for handling common queries, offering instant support, and streamlining operations at any time and in any language.

AI-driven solutions not only enhance efficiency but also provide guests with 24/7 assistance, ensuring a smoother and more satisfying experience. By integrating AI technologies, hotels can free up staff to focus on delivering exceptional in-person service.

Sustainability and Eco-Friendly Practices

Sustainability is no longer optional, it’s a necessity often enforced by regulation. Travellers are increasingly favouring hotels that adopt eco-friendly practices, such as using locally sourced food, implementing energy-efficient operations, and reducing waste.

By prioritising sustainability, hotels not only meet guest expectations but also contribute positively to the environment. This commitment to green initiatives enhances brand reputation and attracts environmentally conscious travellers. A recent survey by Booking.com found that 83% of global respondents believe more sustainable travel is vital, with 49% believing there aren’t enough sustainable travel options and 53% saying they get annoyed when a hotel prevents them from being sustainable.

Smart use of technology is key in the sustainability journey of hotels. Technology can accurately measure the reduction in carbon footprint, it will help reduce energy and adopt renewable energy sources, and will enable the effective management of food waste. Many hospitality apps allow guests to apply green energy settings to a room, some will even exchange your energy savings to loyalty points.

The return of ‘real’

With Gen Z – the first generation grown up with everything digital – becoming the next large group to travel, the craving for ‘real’ experiences is bigger than it ever was. Hotels focusing on truly unique and hyper local experiences; a great meal, cultural outing, or wellness treatment will win the hearts of this generation.

Fortunately hotel apps, AI, automation of processes, sustainability tech and the removal of cumbersome processes like checking-in and studying paper manuals will free up hotel staff to allow them to do what they do best: providing unforgettable, personalised and sustainable experiences.