Industry news

Analyst: Virtualisation to lead the way

Virtualisation is to significantly change infrastructure and operations in global business over the next five years, new research has claimed.

A new report from Gartner has found that virtualisation will completely change IT – from the way it is planned and purchased to the way it is deployed and managed.

The analyst said that it will be the biggest influence on infrastructure and operations, noting that it will create a new wave of competition among infrastructure vendors.

Philip Dawson, vice-president at Gartner, said: "Virtualisation is hardly a new concept; storage has already been virtualised – albeit primarily within the scope of individual vendor architectures – and networking is also virtualised."

"However, as both server and PC virtualisation become more pervasive, traditional IT infrastructure orthodoxy is being challenged and is changing the way business works with IT."

Server virtualisation – which promises the possibility of unlocking the full potential of existing architecture servers – is to lead the way in these changes, according to the analysts.

The firm estimates that virtualisation reduced the x86 server market by four per cent in 2006.

Last month, it was reported that virtualisation systems and service-oriented architecture were likely to top IT departments' priorities as they increased the flexibility of a business' networks and operations, market analysts ITC suggested.