In a few weeks, Wind River’s Ron Breault shares his expertise during the Smart Industry webinar “Digital
Transformation Using Virtualization and Container Software Solutions.” Today he previews his presentation, touching on shifting business practices, front-runners of virtualization and boosting agility with modern tools. Take a look…
Smart Industry: Define how you are using the terms "virtualization" and "container software solutions.”
Ron: As I come from a company with deep roots in operating systems and device-control software, I take a systems approach to these two technologies. Virtualization provides a means of running operating systems and applications built for one hardware platform on another platform, unchanged. Containers, on the other hand, are focused on providing a means of packaging applications (and their supporting dependencies) so that they can be easily ported from one system to another, launched and managed sharing the same underlying host kernel. Wind River provides modern operating-system and runtime-environments solutions, which support both virtualization and containers.
Smart Industry: Provide examples of how virtualization and the use of Linux application system containers is ushering in digital transformation?
Ron: Digital transformation is all about bringing transformational change to business practices through the use of technologies. Where to VM and containers come in? Software content in systems is increasing and that software is becoming more complex. The value of systems is increasingly derived from software. And software is a critical component of how companies compete and transform legacy systems into more modern software platforms. Containers and VMs are tools that provide flexibility, agility, and a means of navigating change and managing complexity.
Ron: This kind of transformation is happening across industries, although some (like communication and networking) started earlier than others. Today we’re seeing a lot of interest coming from industries that have traditionally had more constraints placed on them, either due to legacy business practices, technological limitations, or due to legislative restrictions or safety requirements—think medical, industrial process control, railway and other transportation industries. In the process-control space, ExxonMobil has been a key change agent, spurring the concept and launch of a new industrial standard aimed at process-control automation.
Smart Industry: What most excites you about the near future of these initiatives?
Ron: Change is exciting—once you start to engage with the leaders and innovators in an industry you never know where things are going to go! You have ideas on how you can help companies save money or increase their agility and flexibility, and that’s a good start. But once they come up to speed and truly understand what these modern technologies can do, and the way their business practices can change, they’re able to introduce concepts, product change and services that you might never have imagined! To me, that’s what transformation change is all about!
