Drawing analogies: Server Virtualization and "Modern" Data Networks

While I don't think the analogy of VMotion = VRRP/HSRP/GLBP is quite "tight" enough, Wes Noonan makes a pretty good (and purposefully ironic) case for server consolidation = network segment isolation through VLANs. 

How virtualization was stolen from network admins | NetworkWorld.com Community

... I’m also going to prove that really all this big talk about virtualization is stuff they stole from us network admins anyway, and like usual we got none of the credit. :) 
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Even more direct of a comparison though is the tried and true VLAN. You have a hub/switch, but you need to have multiple subnets running on it. In the old days, this meant buying more devices (in those days probably hubs) and winding up with an unmanageable sprawl of network devices. You can consolidate all of those network devices into a smaller subset, but still keep the isolation of network segments by simply creating a VLAN for each network segment. One switch (or at least a subset of the original switches) while still having the same number of subnets. This sounds strikingly similar to how you can consolidate all those physical servers down virtual machines running on a handful of physical servers.

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