Virtualization in the data center continues to be a highly successful strategy for improving efficiency, scalability, performance, cost control, and, ultimately, the value that the IT infrastructure delivers to the business. So where does it go from here?

One CTO in Silicon Valley thinks the sky’s the limit. David Hughes, CTO of Silver Peak Systems, a data center WAN optimization company based in Santa Clara, CA, recently sat down with the BBC News. He noted that virtualization isn’t just being used in the data center, it’s being used on the desktop, too.

“A lot of people talk about it, and it’s been a buzzword for a while, but I think we’re just at the beginning of what virtualization can do to help companies build more efficient infrastructure,” said Mr. Hughes. “Virtualization is used in a number of different ways. It’s used at the server level in a data center so that people can adjust how servers are used by different applications. It’s also been used on the desktop, so that people have virtualized desktops, and it makes them much easier to manage and provide a consistent service to the end users.”

Mr. Hughes points out that in Silver Peak’s own area of expertise, “there’s been a big rise in the idea of using virtual appliances. Traditionally we’ve sold physical appliances, physical machines that are used in data centers and get connected by wires. With virtual appliances we can install as software on almost any hardware. This opens up a lot of interesting opportunities in terms of where and how our technology can be used.”

Mr Hughes reiterated the reality that IT executives live with daily – that as today’s organizations continue to become more geographically distributed, managing the IT infrastructure and networks required to support these users is an increasingly complex challenge. Can’t argue with that.