Complex virtualization drives desire for more sophisticated management software 6 March, 2009 By Erin Bell

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The study found that, in particular, IT organizations with the most mature and complex virtualization implementations (which IDC defined as having more than 50 virtual machines in operation) were the ones asking for the tools.

According to IDC, the experience of companies with larger scale virtualization implementations indicates how important state-of-the-art management software tools and best practices are to assuring effective operation of these increasingly mission critical environments.

The study found that 56 per cent of the more complex and mature organizations said they believed that management of their organization's virtual environment was critical to reaching the organization's business goals.

In contrast, only 24 per cent of the decision makers responsible for managing less complex environments felt this to be the case.

''To be successful, organizations expecting to grow their virtualization environments need to simultaneously invest in appropriate management tools, best practices, and automation,'' said Mary Johnston Turner, research director, System Management Software.

The survey also found that 79 per cent of organizations with more than 50 virtual machines reported that they currently apply, or plan to apply, ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) or other best practice process models to manage their virtual infrastructure. Only 48 per cent of the less complex organizations said they were also planning to apply the same models.

As well, 70 per cent of companies with the larger implementations said they currently use or are planning to deploy common management tools across physical and virtual environments, compared to 53 per cent of the less complex organizations.

Seventy per cent of decision makers responsible for larger implementations also said that they expected automation to play a very important role in their virtualization management environment going forward. This compares to only 37 per cent of the less complex organizations.

The study, entitled "North American Virtualization Survey: Large-Sale Implementation Requires Sophisticated Management Strategy" surveyed 100 North America IT decision makers who were responsible for virtualization infrastructure.

Respondents were asked more than 35 questions relating to their current and planned use of infrastructure virtualization technologies and management tools.

This report analyzes the differences in virtual infrastructure management priorities among organizations with fairly complex and mature virtual infrastructure environments compared to organizations that have less mature environments.