I have a project at work that involves facilitating the recompete of software licenses. The current software package I’m working on involves virtualization software. Once I understood what virtualization is, I stood agape at its implications.
Virtualization is computer software that decouples computer hardware from computer usage. It allows multiple hardware devices to behave as a single entity. Early mainframes had one terminal from which the user would enter program instructions. Now, innumerable users can use the cloud—an ocean of mainframes that seamlessly receive instructions and deliver service. Virtualization software can mimic desktop computers on a mainframe. It can enable multiple servers to act as one. It is the technology that undergirds the cloud.
In World Leadership, I predicted that a digital legal infrastructure would arise. This would be needed to link legal code across the federal, state, and local levels, so when a change was made to one, it showed up in the others. This would eliminate delays in passing successive laws and eliminate much of the incoherence in legal code. This would also enable fewer government personnel to manage resources over a much larger population and territory by getting computers to facilitate what has to be done manually today. It is a prerequisite for the nation-union. When I made that prediction five years ago, I didn’t know of any software that would eventually be able to accomplish this. Now I do. Virtualization software could ultimately integrate legal code from across the three levels of government and across all entities within a level. This would create a digital legal infrastructure.
Full maturity of the software will be needed for this to happen. Moreover, people would need to want this type of legal infrastructure, therefore it will be generations before people grasp its benefits. In the meantime, the virtualization industry is expected to double in size over the next three years, from roughly $60B to $120B, so it isn’t going anywhere—it’s only growing larger. The beginning of the future has arrived.
Photo: ISA
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