I think that many of us use the processes of critical thinking but we just don’t put a name on it. I also think that a good way to describe the process is that critical thinkers ask questions when evaluating a source. Basically, critical thinking is a reflective type of thinking that aims at proper decision making. This can be done following an established process, or on your own. Critical thinking in the western world has roots in the Socratic Method and is an important process in higher education. Some skills that are produced by or used during critical thinking are observation, interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, and explanation. Using these skills, you endeavor to recognize problems, focus on problem solving, comprehend relevance, see unstated assumptions and values, and comprehend and use language correctly. One other important aspect of critical thinking is that you need to be willing to turn the critical thought to your own work, just as you would to another’s, and even more so.
Trends in virtualization are always changing. As the technology matures and advances are made, there are more options open to administrators and more cost saving virtualization projects that can be implemented. This website called “Virtualize Your IT Infrastructure” by the VMWare company gives you some idea of the capability using the VMWare product, which is simply one of several virtualization options. In an expanded paper, I would like to compare the features of VMWare with other hypervisors like Hyper V, or KVM. Also, I would like to explore the future of the virtualization technology in general (“Virtualize Your IT Infrastructure,” 2012). This article is very useful because it gives a complete overview of the VMWare products and how they are applicable to each stage in the virtualization process, and also the various options or platforms for virtualization. I believe that this topic will generate a variety of relevant sources for analysis and this reference is the starting off point for my research because I see VMWare as the industry leader in the market of hypervisors. Although I have used other hypervisors, such as Microsoft’s Hyper-V or the open source KVM platform, VMWare, and more specifically the ESX and ESXi platforms are the current standard to which the others are measured. ESXi is a free product, and can be installed on existing hardware, so this is a valid platform for most scenarios, regardless of project budget.
The article “Server virtualization is on the rise” by Deni Connor, can be easily summarized. In the Article, Connor (2004) makes the point that server virtualization is moving from small markets to the mainstream and that the rate of implementation is steadily increasing. The article also addresses the race to keep up with processor technology by VMWare and others (Connor, 2004). As evidence for this, Connor (2004) says, “If you look at processor trends, both Intel and AMD have shifted from increasing the clock speed of their processors to, increasing the number of processor cores on a single chip,” says Michael Mullaney, vice president of marketing for VMware. “Going forward, you are going to find out that even a two-CPU server actually has four processors” (p. 01) The article “Server virtualization is on the rise” by Deni Connor, where Connor (2004) says “Virtualization is moving from a niche market into the mainstream, especially since Microsoft entered the market” (p. 01) make it clear that this is a project topic that is worth pursuing. This is a technology that is just now permeating into the main stream and the future of the technology is leading in a direction of more and more implementation. This article is very relevant to the subject because of the statement above and the varied range of topics discussed in the article like VMWare’s partnerships with Citrix, Dell, HP, IBM, Oracle and Red Hat.
Reference
Virtualize Your IT Infrastructure (2012). Retrieved October 15, 2012, from http://www.vmware.com/virtualization/
Connor, D. (2004). Server virtualization is on the rise. Network World, 21(49), 25-25,28. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/215981425?accountid=27965
