Over the past several years, organizations have had to struggle with the decision on whether and how to transfer their data storage scheme from a traditional warehouse model to a virtualized environment. When you consider the relatively short amount of time virtualization has been a viable option, the adoption by many organizations has been swift. Many groups, however, have been reticent to consider the change citing, among other reasons, security as one of the primary reasons for their slow adoption.

Writing recently for InformationWeek, Henry Kenyon detailed a new plan by one specific organization to transfer their storage model from traditional data storage to a more virtualized IT operation. Of course, when you consider which organization Kenyon was writing about, one realizes it may well be a vote of confidence for the security of the virtual platform.

The United States Navy, recognizing the cost-benefit of virtualization has launched a pilot program intended to review virtual desktops. As noted in Kenyon’s article, the Navy expects they will see a reduction in both equipment and overhead costs. Additionally, the Navy also expects security will be enhanced by transitioning to a virtualized environment.

The lessons learned by the Hosted Virtual Desktop (HVD) pilot program could aid private organizations in recognizing security does not have to be sacrificed for bottom-line savings. As sources associated with HVD have stated, system security will be enhanced overall due to the fact they can centralize security patching and updating. This enhanced security ability will also lead to cost savings as it will no longer be necessary to staff onsite tech support at each location with access to the Navy and Marine Corps Intranet.

Kenyon quotes Navy CIO Terry Halverson who stated, “We’re doing it for cost and security. If I can get to a higher volume of HVD users, the pure cost of the device is much less,” he said, suggesting that $400 per device was a reasonable estimate. According to a memorandum written by Halverson last month, the Navy’s intention is to have adopted full virtualization of their current server-based systems and applications by the end of the 2017 fiscal year.

Only two days prior to Halverson announcing the HVD pilot program, Wikibon’s Stu Miniman spoke with SiliconANGLE’s Kristin Feledy calling on organizations that have yet to recognize and adopt virtualization to begin formulating and implementing a hypervisor strategy for their company. The need to expedite the transition is driven by the recognition the hypervisor is in the process of being commoditized.

A hypervisor enables adoption of virtualization by allowing multiple operating systems to share a single hardware device. While it may appear each individual operating system has the full use of and attention from the single host device, the hypervisor is allocating processing and memory to the virtual machines (VM) accessing the host, making certain no one VM can disrupt another.

As Miniman states, early providers like VMWare are soon to face increasing competition in this market. VMWare, for instance, is already an established virtualization provider. The new upstart companies stepping into the virtualization market are forcing a closing of the functionality gap.

Due to the increased competition and commoditization, Miniman explained what is known as ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’. Basically, when you have a clear leader in the space like VMWare, they will listen to their existing licensed customers and add ever more features and functionality to their product. This mass addition to the product could lead to higher pricing for the product and eventually lead to feature bloat.

With the prospect of this increased cost for the overall system, it is important for organizations to select their virtualization provider not based on a provider’s overall suite of features but rather on the features important for their specific operations virtualization needs.

When you consider the benefits of desktop and enterprise application virtualization, one sees employing a managed service allows organizations to quickly adapt and respond to the changing needs of the company. It also provides the same centralized IT structure mentioned above with the HVD pilot program, allowing organizations to deliver virtualized desktops and applications to branch offices, outsourced and offshore employees, and off-site employees working on iPad and Android tablets. And in so doing, this secure remote access improves productivity without sacrificing performance and security.

The announcement of the Navy’s adoption of virtualization coming on the heels of Miniman’s advice that a hypervisor strategy should be put together by organizations yet to adopt the technology indicates the immediate direction IT is currently headed. While the technology is still technically young, it should be increasingly clear that the benefits of adopting virtualization far outweigh any of the challenges an organization might encounter.

For those organizations that have already adopted a virtualization environment, Wikibon’s Miniman encourages CIO’s and IT professionals to complete the Wikibon survey on how best to plan a hypervisor strategy.