EMA virtualization research offers trends, forecasts and recommendations

Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, announced the release of its latest research report titled, “Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts and Recommendations.”

EMA and its research director, Andi Mann, digs deep within one of 2008’s hottest technologies – virtualization. A technology that cuts across many different layers such as server virtualization, network virtualization, storage virtualization, grid and cluster computing and more. In order to really see what’s going on within the industry, and to move past the marketing hype, the firm surveyed more than 625 IT professionals this year in order to learn their thoughts on virtualization and the IT management implications of the technologies. Respondents are actively working with the technology and come from small and medium sized businesses as well as very large enterprises. And these respondents also work in different industries and come from various geographical locations – leading us to a very comprehensive 70-page research report.

“The promise of IT virtualization continues to be significant as it rightfully gains traction across servers, desktops, applications, networks, storage and more,” said Mann. “This latest research report identifies what is really happening within the exploding virtualization marketplace, the impact it is having on IT professionals and the technology options that are available today.”

Some of the interesting findings in this research report include:

• Virtualization isn’t just for development and testing anymore. Almost three-quarters of all enterprises are now using virtualization for production applications.
• In 2008, VMware still has the highest percentage of deployments. However, a growing threat is coming from its competitors. Microsoft is already within 10% of VMware’s lead, and Citrix is 20% behind that. VMware dominates within server virtualization, but Microsoft Hyper-V is expected to be a serious challenger. Already, a third of respondents are planning to deploy Hyper-V, and that number is expected to grow as Windows Server 2008 deployments increase.
• In the next 12-24 months, desktop virtualization is expected to be the most hotly contested virtualization market. It has the strongest potential for growth in the virtualization market, and VMware, Microsoft and Citrix are all neck-and-neck within 2% of each other in enterprise penetration.
• Human issues are the single most important problem in virtualization today. Political infighting is holding back successful virtualization deployments. And as I’ve reported before, Enterprises are still facing an impending skills crisis in attracting and retaining virtualization resources. Since 2006, the report shows that the number of enterprises that have the virtualization skills they need has dropped by 25%.
• Virtualization management tools are still lagging well behind virtualization management needs. They typically do not manage across multiple platforms, technologies or vendors; they don’t integrate with the rest of the IT management stack; and they don’t align IT services with business objectives.

“The key to success is to approach virtualization as a strategy, not just a series of projects, and to approach it with more realistic expectations,” said Mann, “Companies need to adjust their goals, and find ways to deploy and manage virtualization in more effective ways. This report will help them to do exactly that.”

In addition to purchasing this report, you can also find out more about the latest EMA IT virtualization research and what Andi Mann recommends enterprises need to do to succeed with this emerging technology by attending and viewing a free webinar titled “Virtualization and Management: New Research and Highlights” to be held on Thurs., May 15, 2008 at 2 p.m. EDT.