The Surprising Story of Virtualization and Pirates
As I read Rich Brambley’s recent post “A Pirate Invented Server Virtualization,” I couldn’t help but think of a peculiar story from my own production environment. This tale is a couple of years old, but sadly, it’s still relevant today. It revolves around a specialized application that we run in our environment, which requires a SQL Server Express instance, a proxy/licensing server, and client installation with license files to function properly.
This application may not be advanced or resource-intensive, making it an ideal candidate for virtualization. However, when we attempted to set it up in a virtualized environment, we encountered an unexpected roadblock. The application developers had put checks in place to prevent the proxy/licensing service from being installed on virtual machines!
After successfully testing and verifying the solution in our environment, the developer suddenly blocked us from implementing it as desired. The reason given was that the checks were put in place to prevent the easy duplication of the proxy/licensing service in a virtual environment, which could potentially bypass the concurrent user license model they had implemented.
The checks are based on a hardware ID generated by the physical hardware, making it difficult to duplicate the VMs. However, the developers could have worked around this issue by using the server DNS name or even the NIC MAC address as part of the hardware ID checks. Nevertheless, they opted to completely block the installation and operation of that particular part of their infrastructure if run virtualized.
This decision was not only bizarre but also unfair, as it limited our ability to utilize the application in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. We were stuck with a physical server for this service, even though it would have been much better suited for a virtual environment.
The irony of this situation is that the developers of this application, who should have embraced virtualization as a way to improve their product’s flexibility and scalability, instead chose to restrict its use. This reminds me of Dilbert’s comic strip where he jokes about pirates inventing virtualization. Perhaps there is some truth to that!
As a vNinja, I believe in embracing virtualization as a powerful tool for improving IT efficiency and agility. It allows us to break free from the limitations of physical hardware and create more flexible, scalable, and cost-effective infrastructures.
In conclusion, the story of the application developers who blocked the installation of their proxy/licensing service on virtual machines serves as a cautionary tale. It highlights the potential risks of relying solely on physical hardware and the importance of embracing virtualization as a key component of modern IT strategies.
As Dilbert would say, “Was virtualization indeed created by pirates?” Maybe so, but as a vNinja, I’ll continue to use virtualization to my advantage, even if some developers choose to ignore its benefits.