Four in 10 servers 'are virtual'

published 19 July 2011

Almost 40 per cent of business servers are virtualised, according to Veeam's new V-Index.

The penetration rate stood at 39.4 per cent, according to the index, which showed the average number of physical servers in an enterprise stood at 664.

Over nine in 10 businesses are using virtualisation to some degree, with companies running an average of 470 virtual machines.

In a vendor breakdown, the index showed of those using virtualisation, 84 per cent went for VMware, 61 per cent for Microsoft Hyper-V, 55.4 per cent for Citrix Xen and 12 per cent for other hypervisors.

Ratmir Timashev, president and chief executive (CEO) of Veeam, told IT Pro his company would not be moving to support Citrix's Xen hypervisor until it gained enough market share.

Veeam has been traditionally been seen as a VMware-only firm but it will soon offer Hyper-V support too.

Timashev expects the level of server virtualisation to spike in the coming years.

"In the next three to five years we expect penetration to hit between 60 per cent and 80 per cent," he said.

"People now realise they need to virtualise their business critical applications... The second spike in virtualisation is coming after a period of slower growth."

Tom Brewster is currently an associate editor at Forbes and an award-winning journalist who covers cyber security, surveillance, and privacy. Starting his career at ITPro as a staff writer and working up to a senior staff writer role, Tom has been covering the tech industry for more than ten years and is considered one of the leading journalists in his specialism.

He is a proud alum of the University of Sheffield where he secured an undergraduate degree in English Literature before undertaking a certification from General Assembly in web development.

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