A new survey into data centre technology adoption around the world has found virtualisation and consolidation rank highest as strategic priorities.
Symantec's State of the Data Centre Research report suggests data centre managers are looking to these technology approaches in the face of onerous and complicated challenges resulting from rapidly rising service level agreements (SLAs), staffing difficulties, increasing expenditures and data centre growth.
It found some 65 per cent of respondents report formal internal SLAs exist in their organisation, while 32 per cent said service-level demands have rapidly increased. And further 51 per cent have found it more difficult to meet service-level demands during the past two-year period.
But the research also found that, with each increasing level of data centre complexity, IT spending rises by three per cent. By attributing three per cent of the average $110 million IT budget to complexity, Symantec said Global 2000 enterprises are spending more than $6.6 billion (3.2 billion) annually to help manage data centre complexity.
The research suggests that ongoing data centre challenges such as complexity, heterogeneity and an ongoing skill shortage are contributing to the difficulty in meeting SLAs.
Out of 800-plus data centre managers interviewed, 52 per cent said their data centres are currently understaffed, while 69 per cent believe their data centres are growing at least five per cent per year and 11 per cent report 20 per cent growth or more per year.
But the average reported budget increase during the last two-year period is only seven per cent worldwide. Symantec said that, once adjusted for an average rate of three per cent inflation, this figure shows data centre budget growth has been minimal during the past five years.
In response to having to do more with less budget, 90 per cent of respondents are at least discussing server virtualisation and 50 per cent are implementing virtualisation strategies. Almost the same number (91 per cent) are at least discussing server consolidation, while 58 per cent are implementing consolidation strategies.
In addition to server consolidation and virtualisation, 75 per cent of respondents are considering storage virtualisation as a potential solution, while 59 per cent of respondents indicated web applications are the most likely to be moved into a virtual environment, followed by database management applications as selected by 42 per cent of respondents.
Kris Hagerman, Symantec Data Centre Management group president said: "The services delivered by data centre professionals have never been more important to their businesses, but at the same time, they are under relentless pressure to do more with less and within an environment of maddening complexity."
