Market watcher IDC said the number of European firms deploying virtualisation technology has rocketed in the last year. But as usage rises, problems are beginning to surface.

According to IDC, 35 per cent of servers purchased in 2007 have been virtualised, with 52 per cent of those bought in 2008 expected to be so. The 54 per cent of firms not currently using virtualisation, are expected to do so in the next 18 months.

"Virtualisation use has exploded since our last survey of the European market," said IDC's systems group consulting and research director Chris Ingle.

"Both large organisations and smaller businesses are using the technology for a wider range of applications and for business critical projects, and as usage grows, the challenges, around managing virtual infrastructure, finding skilled staff, and software licensing are becoming more apparent," he added.

The IDC report concludes that skills shortages are becoming the main barrier to virtualisation adoption.

IDC reported that VMware is the clear market leader, with 82 per cent of its sample using its virtualisation technology.

Microsoft will be hoping its market share increases after its recent launch of its hypervisor technology, Hyper-V. IDC reported that 13 per cent of those polled already used Microsoft's technology; 3 per cent had used the Xen hypervisor, while 14 per cent reported using various Unix systems and mainframe virtualisation technology.