Virtualisation is the common buzzword from datacentres to desktops. VMware, partly owned by EMC, is at the forefront of virtualisation technologies that helps computer servers run more efficiently and frees companies from having to maintain huge datacentres. CIOs seem to be rushing to virtualise and embrace cloud computing infrastructure in tough financial times, according to VMware India & Saarc managing director, T Srinivasan. Analysts like IDC agree and predict that virtualisation will rise dramatically by 2010, when 14.6% of all physical servers will be virtualised. In a chat with Pragati Verma, Srinivasan narrates the growth story of virtualisation and cloud computing and his plans to cope with changing competitive landscape. Excerpts:

Virtualisation has clearly caught CIOs fancy globally. How prepared are Indian tech managers?

We have 500-odd customers here in India. Their CIOs talk about how they have saved time and money with our software. Mahindra & Mahindra has virtualised the entire SAP application. Automobile major Bajaj Auto relied on acquiring new physical servers to support its business growth across its Indian and Indonesian operations till now. The company soon realised that it would run out of space in its primary datacentre. Rather than build a new datacentre, Bajaj Auto decided to go in for virtualisation. By May this year, the company was running most of its applications from 30 virtual machines. There are many more like Shaw Investor and Chitale Dairy. Virtualisation technologies have been well-received because of quick return on investments.

At the same time, we need to do much more. We believe that it helps you do more with less. It helps save power, money and real estate. It is more eco-friendly. We have a pretty compelling story.

Is the Indian market moving beyond server virtualisation?

To be honest, the Indian market is focused more on server virtualisation as returns are bigger. Desktop virtualisation will come but it?s early days yet for it. Storage will also be virtualised in some time.

We are owned by EMC, but we work closely with all storage vendors.

Are Indian government departments ready to virtualise their infrastructure?

Governments are investing in IT significantly. Numbers are mindboggling. Worldwide, we work with several defence and government organisations. We do have the ability to make a difference but these are long gestation period projects.

In our tenders, it is left to the systems integrators to get hardware and applications. We are working closely with them and OEMs. Some of them offer virtualisation as part of the solution and others virtualise when they are under pressure to reduce costs.

Enterprises have moved first and now we need to spread the message to governments. We are working on few bids with the government and public sector. Many of them like to start small and virtualise one or two servers and then expand it later.

Among enterprises, who are the early adoptors?

We have seen appreciable business in the last two to three years in India. We are vertical agnostic. Financial sector, especially banks; ITEs and telecom players in a limited way have been among the first to click on virtualisation deals. Size doesn?t matter as virtualisation can help SMEs as well as large enterprises.

How do outsourcing and offshoring companies deploy virtualisation?

Yes, they are lapping it up. Typically, they need to build a fence around every project from their clients. With adequate security in place, virtual desktops enable them to share resources between several projects. So, productivity increases manifolds. This is especially useful when they have people with skills that are not easily available and can now use them across multiple projects.

Microsoft has been talking about gaining marketshare from VMware and pricing aggressively…

Microsoft is a formidable competitor. But we are currently much ahead of the competition. They will take time to catch up with us. Moreover, competition will help grow the market. Microsoft surely has longevity with their customers but saying that they are taking a share from us is just PR talk. Customers would want to look at solutions agnostic of operating systems. Ability to be platform agnostic is going be key in this market. Pricing might become an issue, going forward. But it will work if we are able to justify investments from a business point of view. Many people foresee pricing to come down with competition, but we can?t jump to conclusions right now. We will have to wait and see. Depending on customer requirements, we now have different products at different price points.

What is the biggest driving force behind virtualisation today?

If you look at some of our successes, you will realise that return on investment on virtualisation products is quick. People buy a server and run an application like email and need to buy another server and run an application like ERP or CRM. We virtualise servers so that these applications can be run on a single physical server and make it look like running two or three different servers. So, you don?t need to wait for six weeks to get a quotation and then buy a server. So, you also save go to market time besides saving on costs. At the same time, you are saving on electricity. Obviously, there are tremendous benefits for users.

On the desktop side, every time an employee joins you don?t need a new infrastructure. Instead of buying a new PC, you can centralise your computing infrastructure. You don?t have a personal desktop but everything is backed up. Disaster recovery is also simpler.

Two months back, we launched Vsphere 4. We are now moving into virtualisation of network and storage. So, server, network and storage are also virtualised. This leads into cloud computing. It is everybody?s favourite subject. We are enabling the move to cloud here.