Support in the 21st Century Datacenter. There is no doubt that virtualization technology has been one of the leading factors in the dramatic changes we have seen inside the 21st century datacenters. For all practical purposes the landscape in the datacenters today look a lot different than they did before the turn of the century. During this evolution that fundamentally changed the technology environment, how much has the support structure really changed to keep up with virtualization and cloud technologies? This is the topic that I would like to focus on in this multi-part post that will explore the different support structures and concepts that have been the standards. Let’s start a discussion of what just might be a better way of doing things moving forward. First, I want to establish the base line and then move on to the different thought processes and philosophies for the future.