Virtualization examples so far have all been hardware-centric, because the inherent inflexibility of hardware means the elasticity advantages of virtualization are greater than with software. However, virtualization can work anywhere in the computing stack. You can virtualize both the hardware and the operating system, which allows programs written for one OS to run on another, and programs written for a virtual OS to run anywhere (similar to how Java maintains its hardware independence through the Java Virtual Machine).

Quite possibly the growth of virtualization predicts a deep change in the responsibilities of CIOs. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future no CIO will ever think about hardware: Raw physical processing and storage will be bought in bulk from information utilities or server farms. Applications will be the business of the departments or offices requiring them. The center of a CIO’s job will be the care and feeding of the execution environment. The very title of CIO might vanish, to be replaced, of course, by CVO.

Taking It All In

In that world, virtualization could graduate into a full-throated simulation of entire systems, the elements of which would not be just computing hardware, as now, but all the motors, switches, valves, doors, engines, vehicles and sensors in a company. The model would run in parallel with the physical company and in real-time. Where now virtualization is used for change management, disaster recovery planning, or maintenance scheduling for networks and their elements, it would in the future do the same for all facilities. Every object or product sold would come with a model of itself that could fit into one of these execution environments. It would be the CVO’s responsibility to make sure that each company’s image of itself was accurate and complete and captured the essentials. And that would not be a virtual responsibility in the least.

Fred Hapgood is a freelance writer living near Boston. He can be reached at hapgood@pobox.com.