European business embraces virtualization | | 2008-07-11 | | A June 2008 survey of European business by IDC has revealed an explosion in uptake of virtualization since a similar survey last year.
The report found 35% of servers purchased in 2007 have been virtualized with 52% of those bought in 2008 expected to be so. 54% of those not using virtualization expect to do so in the next 18 months.
Chris Ingle, consulting and research director at IDC’s Systems Group noted "Large organisations and smaller businesses are using the technology for a wider range of applications and for business-critical projects. As use of virtualisation grows the challenges around managing complexity, finding skills and software licensing become more apparent."
IDC’s 2008 European Server Virtualization Survey: Fast Growth and Wider Range of Applications found that Organizations are increasing their virtualization of x86 systems for core business applications, although at the moment this is mostly for test and development and for network server applications.
Growth of virtualization as a strategy remains strong, rising from 46% of the base to 54%. Virtualization is growing as a datacenter strategy in itself rather than as part of other projects. This supports the view that virtualization is increasingly seen as a standard for a wide range of workloads.
VMware leads the market with 82% of the sample using VMware. Despite high levels of Linux use, only 3% of those sampled were using Xen as their virtualization platform. Microsoft was used by 13% of the sample base with various Unix technologies and mainframe accounting for 14%.
59% of installations have fewer than four VMs or partitions per physical box. The largest growth area for virtualization use over the past year, particularly in small and medium businesses, is improving disaster recovery, backup, and enhancing availability.
The report suggests expertise and skills are likely to be the biggest barrier to virtualization adoption, while 23% of virtualization users report that their application vendors’ licensing is still not meeting their needs and 33% of large businesses report that it limits use of virtualization.
Chris Ingle added: "The range of approaches makes the right technology selection critical: Microsoft is making a strong push for market share later in 2008; VMware seems to be in the right place with its focus on business continuity and virtualization management; Citrix and the Unix vendors are appealing to their core markets; HP, IBM, Fujitsu-Siemens Computers, Dell, Sun, BMC, and others will look to take the lead in systems and management."
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