The desire to maximise resources and adapt quickly to business change is driving the adoption of server virtualisation, IDC has claimed.
According to the research firm, more than 15pc of new server shipments will undergo virtualisation in 2010, up from 5pc in 2005.
IDC said that while early server virtualisation was due to consolidation and migration of projects, new drivers for virtualisation include availability solutions and disaster recovery projects.
Automation is expected to play a strong role in managing virtualisation resources in the next 18 months as IT organisations evaluate more sophisticated management tools.
The industry impact of virtualisation is becoming evident with an increase in the penetration of four-way systems and IT organisations choose more richly configured systems.
The drive for virtualisation is having an impact on how the IT industry derives income from businesses and governments, declared Michelle Bailey, research vice-president, Enterprise Platforms and Data Centre Trends, IDC.
“Given the rate of adoption, virtualisation has many implications for change control processes, chargeback mechanisms, SLAs [service level agreements], business case development, staffing levels and staffing competencies,” Bailey said.
“Customers do not typically incorporate all of these changes immediately, rather they address them in defined stages as their experience grows and as corporate culture accepts this shared resource mode.”
She said the shared research model can help IT buyers understand where they fit in the current server virtualisation marketplace, how far they can potentially drive this technology and where their organisation should ideally aim.
It also helps IT vendors target their marketing and communications efforts to customers in different phases of virtualisation adoption, she added.
By John Kennedy
