Gabriel Consulting Unveils Key Findings of 2010 x86 Server Vendor Research
Enterprise IT x86 Virtualization Moves Paying Off, But Management Satisfaction Lags. Plenty of Virtualization Diversity: 71% Using Two or More Virtualization Mechanisms.
BEAVERTON, Oregon – Feb. 16, 2011 — Gabriel Consulting Group (GCG), an independent analyst firm, today released key findings of its fourth annual 2010 x86 Server Vendor Preference survey, a report focused on vendor selection trends among 199 enterprise data center managers responsible for data centers of all sizes.
Key findings from the ‘Virtualization’ section of the survey include:
- Though the vast majority of respondents are using some sort of virtualization, less than half of them say they’ve virtualized 50% or more of their servers.
- Customers see higher hardware utilization and cost savings from virtualization, as expected…
- But only about half find that virtualized systems are easier to manage or help them meet their SLAs.
“Customers are continuing their move to virtualized x86 infrastructures and are seeing solid benefits from it – which we expected,” said Dan Olds, Principal Analyst at GCG. “What concerns me a bit is that survey scores on virtualization manageability are flat or dropping, when they should be improving over time. Management and administration are key labor and cost issues for customers. These scores are a sign that current virtualization management suites aren’t getting the job done, or that customers aren’t taking full advantage of them.”
The survey also found that more than half of x86 customers believe that virtualized x86 will become their dominant usage model. Adoption may be hindered to some degree by uncertainty over which virtualization tools to adopt and how to effectively manage them, but trends indicate that customers increasingly trust virtualized x86 platforms with their mission-critical workloads.
Additional key findings include:
- Of survey respondents who have virtualized their x86 servers, 82% have at least some VMware. This may seem like an impenetrable market share, but the next finding paints a more nuanced picture…
- A large majority of customers – 70% – use more than one virtualization tool. More than a quarter use four or more.
“VMware is still the dominant virtualization vendor by a wide margin, but we were surprised to see a large percentage of customers (71%) using two or more virtualization tools. More than 25% are using four or more virtualization mechanisms. Some of this is customer tire-kicking, but we’re also seeing that they are selecting particular virtualization products for specific tasks. Given this, we see a more competitive virtualization market in the future,” said Olds.
GCG is also releasing findings from other sections of the 2010 x86 Server Vendor Preference survey. More information and detailed results are available here. Follow Dan Olds on Twitter @danolds.
About Gabriel Consulting Group
Gabriel Consulting Group is a research, analysis, and consulting firm dedicated to helping clients achieve maximum return on their Information Technology investment.
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Contact: Dan Olds
503-372-9389 Office
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