Surveys reveal virtualisation trend

30 April 2008

Microsoft has released results from two major surveys on virtualisation, covering the areas of retail and banking. The two studies – Virtualization in Retail Survey 2008 and Virtualization in Banking Survey 2008 – were conducted by independent US-based firm KRC Research.

The retail survey found that close to three-quarters (71 per cent) of US retailers are turning to virtualisation solutions. Nearly half of participants (49 per cent) are employing virtualisation within their store locations based on cost savings, while 46 per cent are seeking to better respond to issues and failures of applications and systems, and 43 per cent chose virtualisation solutions to help them save space.

“Decades of installing servers, operating systems, applications, middleware and databases have taken their toll, as retailers are nearing their limits for physical space, power usage and cooling,” said Geoff Thomas, general manager of Microsoft’s US Retail and Hospitality Group. “For a chain with 1,000 stores or more, adding just one more server or application per store is a significant investment. That is why virtualisation is an attractive alternative, as more than 50 per cent of retailers surveyed had between three and 10 servers in each of their stores already.”

Microsoft’s other survey reports a similar trend towards virtualisation in the UK and US banking industries. It shows that 58 per cent of large, tier-one banks are implementing virtualisation across multiple aspects of their IT infrastructures, including application (61 per cent), networking (54 per cent), machine operating systems (48 per cent) and presentation (27 per cent).

“Banks realise the impact virtualisation can have on operations, from the data centre to the desktop, and how it should be embraced as part of an enterprise-wide infrastructure strategy,” said Rich Feldmann, managing director of the Financial Services Group at Microsoft. “Virtualisation helps create the foundation for innovative banking applications and channels by producing an agile infrastructure. While banks are known as early adopters of technology, this survey indicates that more than one-third are still on the sidelines waiting for greater value and ease of use before adopting.”