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The most widely deployed mobile virtualization solution
Data Sheets
Open Kernel Labs Blog
September 03, 2009
Mobile virtualization and the Cloud - a pleasing symmetry
Virtualization is the undisputed killer app-enabler of the 21st century. It has revolutionized data center provisioning and operation and is having an evolutionary effect on desktop computing.
Virtualization is also central to the "next big thing" - Cloud Computing. IT organizations may still regard moving to Cloud hosting as a dramatic change, but in embracing the Cloud they are just completing an earlier migration from local physical systems to virtual ones. Indeed, virtualization is central to the Cloud, impacting and enabling all three levels of Cloud architecture: system hosting, application hosting and comprehensive SaaS.
If the Cloud is abstract, even ethereal, then mobile is concrete and familiar - you can hold a mobile phone in your hand. Logistically, mobile devices occupy the opposite end of the IT platform chain: Cloud to Server to Desktop, and now, to Mobile.
This conceptual and structural opposition notwithstanding, handsets, MIDs and other mobile devices share many attributes with the Cloud:
- mobile devices and Cloud hosts both function outside of enterprise IT physical premises
- Cloud servers and mobile devices both host multiple OSes - today's smart phones run as many as three separate operating systems on a single device
- the physical location of mobile devices and of Cloud servers is incidental to their place in pervasive IT infrastructure (and can change dynamically)
- both mobile devices and Cloud servers host and provide access to business-critical applications and corporate data
- mobile and Cloud computers require increasingly high levels of reliability, availability and security to serve their dual enterprise and individual computing missions
- IT organizations look to the Cloud to simplify purchasing and provisioning and would like to do the same with mobile devices
- Cloud servers and increasingly, mobile devices, rely on virtualization to provide this rich mix of attributes and capabilities
These similarities are not merely the result of cosmic coincidence. They reflect, rather, the pervasive benefit of virtualization and the multi-faceted nature of handheld devices.
To serve emerging requirements for secure access to and distribution of applications and data, mobile systems and Cloud computing must serve as secure extensions of enterprise IT. For mobile devices, we call this paradigm M2E -- Mobile-to-Enterprise virtualization. With M2E, IT teams can roll out applications and worker connectivity via mobile platforms using virtualization technology: M2E enables partitioning and securing corporate and personal applications and data. Just as virtual machines host highly-purposed software stacks in the Cloud, mobile virtualization does in the palm of your hand.
Ultimately, what Cloud and mobile computing provide are the underpinnings for unified business intelligence and individual connectedness -- anywhere and at any time. And in pleasing symmetry, they both can perform this neat trick through virtualization.
Posted by Steve Subar on September 03 at 12:56 AM
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About Steve Subar:
Steve Subar, CEO and President of OK Labs, has been an honored leader in the technology industry for 20 plus years and has received several accolades for his work. Steve is an avid runner who can also be found communing with his surfboard in Bondi Beach, Australia; skiing the slopes of Beaver Creek, Colorado; or searching for the perfect Pinot Noir all over the world.