Virtualization is arguably one of the most prominent 'buzz' technologies in the computing industry today - with more than $4.2 billion in reported deal values for M&A activity since December 2000. It's a key component in just about any next-generation architecture due to its ability to break down the sheet metal bonds between systems and base resources and applications on logical instead of physical parameters. It has also signaled a major shift in the industry toward software value and hardware commoditization.