Government asked to subsidise virtualisation

The plan, which allegedly mirrors similar moves in the U.S., will be outlined in a meeting with the Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, this week.

According to visiting VMware chief executive, Paul Maritz, the company would not be ‘proposing any specific program’ outlining the mechanics of how such a scheme would work.

“We’re trying to engage in discussion with the government on all the ways this could be addressed,” Maritz said.

“We want to meet with them, share ideas and raise awareness. We’re trying to say we think we have technology that is relevant in this [green] space.”

Paul Harapin, VP Australia/New Zealand for VMware, added: “In the United States, energy companies provide incentives to companies that virtualise because they don’t want to have to spend money on building new infrastructure when they can find ways to reduce power wastage on the grid.

“The majority of energy in data centres is wasted on x86 utilisation rates.”

Server hardware utilisation is given as one of the main benefits of virtualisation. It is said to make it possible to grow the typical 10-15 percent hardware utilisation of Windows-based servers up to 50 percent or more, according to vendors like VMware, Microsoft and Citrix.

Maritz will meet with customers and partners over the next couple of days to sell them VMware’s extended product roadmap and vision.

“The current economic environment over the next 12 months will serve as an impetus to force IT to look at what they’re doing, get costs under control and increase the flexibility of their environments,” said Maritz.

“Virtualisation is a key strategy for doing that.”

The Virtualisation Forum 2008 event occurs in Sydney tomorrow.