A growing number of organizations of all sizes have been implementing virtualization of x86-based servers to run their production systems for a number of years and have been benefiting from increased efficiencies in their server operations and improved IT agility. As the technology has made a steady and powerful stride beyond development and testing environments into the mainstream of today’s IT infrastructure so has the focal point of server virtualization benefits shifted from the IT whiteboard to the executive boardroom.

The evolution of server virtualization and the ideas it promotes is a fascinating one, truly highlighting the powerful nature of this transformational technology especially since it profoundly impacts the most prevalent form of hardware – x86 servers. Shipments of x86 servers according to Gartner Research[1] currently represent 95% of the worldwide market and will capture 70% of IT spending by 2010 according to IDC. If you aren’t that familiar with the concept of server virtualization the following clip from InfoWorld / animation from TELUS illustrates the idea quite nicely without getting deep into technical jargon.

First it was all about consolidation. The ability to shrink the number of physical servers required to sustain an existing IT service operation and support additional computing capacity and applications provided organizations an excellent mechanism to reduce spending on servers. With a virtual server density (number of virtual servers per physical machine) reaching 12 to 1 on average, the constant pressure on IT capital budgets was greatly alleviated. Furthermore and especially in larger IT shops IT managers were now freed, temporarily at least, from the need to justify a costly expansion of their space, power or cooling constrained data centres.

Many organizations who had large server operations to start with and kicked off a virtualization practice centred on consolidation quickly realized there was much more than that. The increased flexibility and speed to provision virtual servers took over traditional server procurement to a level in which according to Gartner Research shifted the balance from physical to virtual[2] and where virtual servers workloads (workload being the operating system and the application) will be the majority by 2012.

The discussion has subsequently centred on the productivity gains of streamlined virtual server deployment, stronger alignment of IT to the overarching business strategy and easier management – all closely aligned with high operational efficiency through maintained or improved IT operations at the same or lower cost. And that’s without accounting for the power savings resulting from the reduced amount of server hardware required.

Evidently more and more IT decision makers are adopting a “virtualize first” approach in which a new server workload is preferably virtualized on existing server hardware and only if unsuitable for virtualization placed on a dedicated physical server.

If judging from the server virtualization market leader VMware (coincidentally another event partner of GTEC 2008), who claims to have sold into 100% of Fortune 100 businesses, a logical conclusion would be that most major organizations have already  bought in to server virtualization in their production IT environments.

Whether that is indeed the case or not, indications are that currently on a 7% share of the virtual server market opportunity has been addressed and that the install base is expected to grow tenfold in less than 5 years[3].

As the applicability of this technology transcends further into the mainstream and the early majority of technology adopters a larger proportion of small and medium organizations is expected to adopt it as well. According to a survey[4] of Canadian organizations with 100-999 employees conducted by IDC in 2006 and published a year later, over 40% of organizations were considering server virtualization and almost 30% where in various stages of implementing it. If indeed as this research suggests smaller firms lag in the adoption of IT optimization initiatives could it be that the direct financial benefits explained previously have less appeal to small and medium sized organizations or is it that the magnitude of savings does not justify change?

One would argue that for a smaller organization that needs to invest in IT skills and changes in established processes would need more to tip them over. Additional factors need to be layered on top of the capital and operational benefits to bring the discussion to a new level and to favour server virtualization over the status quo.

These factors would likely involve a combination of cost effective and previously unattainable opportunities for the organization to:

1)       Maintain high availability of applications and levels of service

2)       Reduce risk and resume operations promptly following a system failure

3)       Adopt environmentally efficient yet economical alternatives

More on these in the upcoming weeks.