2 September 2008

Organisations are actively seeking ways to make the management of their infrastructure more fluid and open to innovation

Ian Masters, UK Sales and Marketing Director, Double-Take Software A survey has found that 38 per cent of organisations have already adopted virtualised infrastructures, with flexibility, cost and availability as key motivating factors.

Double-Take Software ran the survey in collaboration with the organisers of Storage Expo 2008. Key findings include overwhelming interest in virtualisation, with 38 per cent of respondents having already virtualised their production infrastructure and 52 per cent having plans to do so. Increased infrastructure flexibility was cited as the main benefit of adopting virtualisation (48 per cent), followed by cost reduction (21 per cent). However, beyond these core factors, improved disaster recovery is widely considered a key additional benefit of virtualisation, with 82 per cent stating that it is a significant feature.

“Virtualisation has seen dramatic adoption rates in recent years,” said Natalie Booth, event manager for Storage Expo 2008. “From our discussions with CIOs and analysts we expect this trend to accelerate. We have included a series of seminars on virtualisation in the education programme of Storage Expo 2008 to help organisations explore its benefits.”

“We could have predicted that reduced costs would appear as a major factor in the adoption of virtualised infrastructures,” commented Ian Masters, UK sales and marketing director at Double-Take Software. “However, the high interest expressed in the flexibility of virtualised infrastructures was less predictable and is very significant. It demonstrates that organisations are unhappy with the constraints native to traditional physical infrastructures and are actively seeking ways that can make the management of their infrastructure more fluid and open to innovation.

“Although, 82 per cent of respondents believe that improved disaster recovery is a key additional benefit of virtualisation, Double-Take Software maintains that it is not an automatic by-product. All instances of virtualised systems rely on the physical hardware on which shared data is stored. If physical systems are not adequately protected and fail, then virtualised systems will also fail. Data replication technology from Double-Take Software ensures that any virtualised infrastructure, or mixed environment, is comprehensively protected and also provides organisations with further flexibility, allowing them to dynamically manage their virtualised infrastructure.”

Storage Expo 2008 takes place at Olympia, London on 15-16 October. Further details are available from the Storage Expo Web site.

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