Nearly Half of Virtualization Projects are Unsuccessful

Nearly half of global virtualization projects are unsuccessful, this according to an independent global study which surveyed 800 organizations from around the world. The study, commissioned by Computer Associates, found that 44 percent of respondents who said they had deployed server virtualization technology were unable to declare their deployment a success.

Inability to quantify ROI was a key factor in their reticence to definitively claim positive results. The study also revealed that 71 percent of organizations that have moved ahead with virtualization have deployed, or plan to deploy, multiple server virtualization technologies.

“Although we were surprised by how many organizations were unable to declare their server virtualization deployment a success, we were not at all surprised by the prevalence of heterogeneous virtual environments,” said Paula Daley, director of product marketing at CA. “The challenges facing organizations with diverse virtualized data centers are exactly the types of issues CA helps address – by delivering a unified management solution that provides a single pane of glass view across virtual, physical, and clustered server deployments.”

The numbers may seem alarming, but in reality, the high numbers simply show that too many companies are jumping on the bandwagon and underestimating their virtualization project. Management applications and best practices that are used in the typical physical environment may not always be the best solution in a virtual infrastructure.

According to Richard Whitehead, director of product marketing at Novell, “Virtualization is gaining a lot of traction in the industry and is being heralded as a technology to reduce costs and improve efficiency. While virtualization promises these great benefits, it clearly brings up a new set of management challenges. So, it’s not surprising that the survey shows almost half of the respondents do not feel their deployment of virtualization is a complete success. That’s why last year Novell introduced several new virtualization management solutions including, ZENworks Orchestrator, ZENworks Virtual Machine Management and ZENworks High Performance Computing Management.”

He went on to say, “Virtualization can lower hardware costs, improve efficiency and reduce server sprawl as promised, but it can also increase the total cost of ownership if not managed properly. This is where we see so many companies are running into issues and why, according to this survey, so many are unable to declare virtualization a success.”

As more companies begin to virtualize, training and best practices within the virtual infrastructure will continue to develop and the success rate should then increase to a number that will no longer raise the eyebrows of survey takers and survey readers.