Server virtualisation success hard to measure

A survey has found that 44 percent of firms that have deployed server virtualisation are either unsure whether the project had been a success or view it as a failure

Almost half of companies that have implemented server virtualisation technologies are unable to assess whether the project has been successful, according to new research from software management vendor CA.

CA surveyed 800 organisations based across Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region, including more than 100 from the UK, which were all currently using virtualisation solutions or had plans to do so.

The main reasons listed for deploying server virtualisation were to improve server reliability, system efficiency and business continuity.

However, 44 percent of firms that have deployed the technology were either unable to say whether the project had been successful or viewed the rollout as unsuccessful. More than a quarter of respondents said they have not achieved a return on their investment and do not know when they would see the value.

The survey also revealed that organisations favoured multiple server virtualisation implementations rather than a single platform approach. Almost three-quarters of respondents had deployed multiple server virtualisation technologies, including hard partitioning, clustering or OS virtualisation.

Of the respondents, 74 percent had already deployed virtualisation technologies, while a further 15 percent definitely planned to do so within the next 18 months. The remaining respondents planned to deploy the technology at some point but had no definite timeframe.