Cost savings encouraging moves to virtualisation

The desire to increase efficiency and make cost savings is increasingly driving virtualised services demand, it has been claimed.

According to Tony Lock, programme director of IT analyst firm Freeform Dynamics, a major problem with internal servers has long been the need to have one for each application being run.

He explained that virtualisation relieves this burden, limiting the need for infrastructure investment and allowing end users to get more for their money.

While Mr Lock noted that firms have historically tended to have a number of individual servers working at ten or 15 per cent capacity, the move to hosted services has eliminated this waste - a "really big sales point" for the technology.

He added that while cost savings have been the biggest driver in deployments to date, he suggested that this is just "one step on the curve".

Mr Lock stated: "The biggest potential advancement in server virtualisation is to do with actually being able to allocate resources much better in line with demand and make big savings as a result."

Last week, John Abbot, founder and chief analyst with The 451 Group, claimed that virtual web hosting can offer reliable, flexible storage solutions at a reduced cost.

Written by Tim Dunton