Lack of tools hinders virtualisation uptake

Survey for CA reveals most enterprises are taking a cautious approach to virtualisation

IT managers need a broader set of tools to move forward

New research has revealed widespread caution among enterprises when it comes to virtualisation.

A new survey of 473 IT enterprise decision makers in the US and Germany by management consulting firm Oliver Wyman on behalf of CA Technologies suggests most firms are taking a gradual approach to virtualisation.

The survey revealed that around a third of organisations have only deployed virtualisation for five to 20 per cent of servers, while 87 per cent of companies have virtualised less than 40 per cent of servers.

And this reluctance to attempt wholesale virtualisation is not confined to the US and Germany, according to experts, who said the situation is no different in the UK.

Tim Stammers, industry analyst for Ovum, said this "virtualisation stall" is the result of IT departments finding the process more complex than they anticipated.

“The virtualisation stall is the result of the virtualisation process being more complicated than it appears," he said. "Virtualisation for consolidation purposes is very simple, but doing it to exploit flexibility and create bigger advantages is a problem.

“It can take up to a month to obtain a physical server, whereas a virtual server can be created in under 30 minutes. This leads to businesses hurriedly creating virtual servers, which pose problems in terms of tracking what resources they use.

“IT managers need a greater understanding of the issues for this to go forward and a broader set of tools inside the virtualisation platform," he said, adding that the main providers, such as Microsoft, Citrix and VMware, "have not yet provided the tools we need [to manage the more complicated aspects of virtualisation]".