A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

PLM and Virtualization Technologies

PLM and Virtualization Technologies
olegshilovitsky
olegshilovitsky
19 August, 2009 | 3 min for reading

top-virtual-providersI’m constantly looking for new technologies and perspectives of PLM improvement. For the last time, we discussed many products and technological trends such as a cloud and cloud software social software, simplicity, open source software etc. However, I found one was not touched by myself at all. So, I’d like to open new discussion related to Virtualization Trend. In my view, virtualization becomes a strong trend during past few years. Below is my short test on Google Trend regarding virtualization.

virtualization-trend

So, I’d like to start with some definition and introduction. Virtualization is a very broad term and, in computer software, it related to abstraction of computer resources. You can take a look on Virtualization definition in Wikipedia to see a long list of specific virtualization topics – a platform, application, storage, network, desktop etc. In addition I’d recommend you the following video as well, as 101 in virtualization:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVpNa3rEnpk]

Some of the virtualization technologies are very popular and used by us every day, such as virtual desktops, full virtualization platforms such as VMWare etc. Some of them becomes popular during the last time with emerging of cloud technologies (possible example is Amazon EC2). Another interesting and detailed video about virtualization technologies from Dell’s CTO:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDiM19KShAA]

So, what is my initial take on virtualization and PLM? I’d define three dimensions of virtualization and will try to provide my assessment of how PLM uses it today as well as what is potential in my view.

1. Platform Virtualization

I think platform virtualization becomes mature and popular in IT as significant cost saver. On a server side, I see more and more virtual servers instead of physical machines in organizations. Coupled with cloud computing, hardware virtualization provide very strong offering an impressive ROI. PLM (as well as other enterprise systems) can use hardware virtualization and run in this environment. On a client side, VMWare and other “full virtualization” environment could provide efficient way to decrease IT cost and manage client workstation with heavy CAD/PLM environments.

2. Application Virtualization

This type of virtualization often applied to software to become disconnected from a specific platform. Most of the application focus on ability to create virtual environment that can encapsulate desktop environment or stream application from remote server. In my view, PLM software didn’t make a lot to encapsulate “PLM servers”, but support for widely accepted HW and OS allowing to commercial software like Citrix and some others to support PLM application virtualization.

3. Data Virtualization

This is last, but not least and very important in my view. There is no agreed clear definition of data virtualization. However, I see Data Virtualization as next logical step after Platform and Applications. There is on-going discussion about data virtualization. Some of the opinion makers claim data virtualization as a solution for data integration. Some of the companies implied data availability as way to present data virtualization. For me, PDM/PLM provides a major place where company stores and manages their IP and Knowledge about a product. Data virtualization in context of PDM/PLM can become powerful technology to improve data scalability, modeling and change management. However, this is mostly open question these days.

This is my short intro in Virtualization and PLM. I’m looking forward to next thoughts and discussion.

Best, Oleg.

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
26 August, 2011

PLM 2.0 is a new term that was born about 5 years ago. The term was introduced by Dassault Sysetemes...

14 October, 2011

Yesterday I spent my day on Dassault PLM Forum in Moscow. The event website is here. You can see the...

11 November, 2011

Have you had a chance to read about cloud in Pig Latin? No? Actually, I did. Recently, I came across...

10 February, 2013

To predict future is tough. Not many people are trying to do so. Especially in tech. Companies are juggling with...

22 May, 2009

Look on this blog post –3D Warehouse from Google. Does it make sense in context of what CAD/PLM vendors are...

4 June, 2020

My attention was caught by Jim Brown’s article – Product Data Management Buyer’s Guide (buyer’s guide). The article speaks about...

26 July, 2010

When I’m thinking about any PLM project, I can clearly see the step when data available in the organization need...

19 October, 2018

One of the popular discussions in PLM implementations is Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The debates about PLM TCO intensified...

1 October, 2020

Digital Twin is a new cool name coming on the horizon of PLM and together with DIgital Thread, it has...

Blogroll

To the top