Virtualisation taking on the ‘mega vendors‘

Virtualisation is being touted as the hottest trend in IT to occur in recent years, with analysts, vendors and resellers tipping it will continue to push
the envelope.

“Virtualisation will be the most impactful trend in infrastructure and operations through 2010,” said IT researcher Gartner.

Virtualisation has changed just about everything in the IT portfolio. It affects what products are being bought, how they are bought and how they are implemented.

This year, five key trends will completely change how users choose, deploy and manage x86 server virtualisation technologies.

Phil Sargeant, Gartner’s managing vice president technical and service provider storage research, said that virtualisation has reduced the global x86 server market revenue by four percent in 2006.

“More than four million virtual machines will be installed on x86 servers by 2009,” Sargeant said.

“The number of virtualised PCs is expected to grow from less than five million in 2007 to 660 million by 2011 as many more organisations look for virtualisation to deliver them cost savings.”

According to the researcher, virtualisation software from VMware now offers serious competition to “mega vendors” Microsoft, Oracle and Sun Microsystems.

Prices are dropping fast, changing the return on investment (ROI) equation and putting pressure on vendors to adjust.

The value proposition is shifting to management tools, and the market for virtualisation management tools is
becoming crowded.