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Tag: virtualization

  • CDW-G Releases 2010 Government Virtualization Report

    CDW-G has released its 2010 Government Virtualization Report, an assessment of client, server and storage virtualization in Federal, state and local agencies.

    The report, based on a May survey of 600 Federal, state and local IT managers, reveals that 77 percent of agencies are implementing at least one form of virtualization, and of those, 89 percent are benefiting from the technology.

    Benefits of virtualization, a broad term used to describe the abstraction of computer resources, include reduced operating and capital costs, improved utilization of computing resources and greater IT staff productivity, respondents said.

    Despite those benefits – and imperatives such as the Federal data center consolidation initiative – 81 percent of all agencies said they are not using virtualization to its fullest extent, and just 33 percent employ a “virtualization first” strategy, meaning that a requestor must prove that a new software application does not work in a virtualized environment before the agency will buy a dedicated server to support it.

    According to the report, across government, agencies cited lack of staff and budget as top impediments to further virtualization adoption. Nearly half said their IT department is not appropriately staffed and trained to manage a virtual environment. Despite those challenges, most agencies said they will fully implement client, server and storage virtualization by 2015.

    “The cost savings associated with virtualization are exceptionally compelling in the current budget environment,” said David Hutchins, director of state and local sales for CDW-G. “We see many state and local governments starting with a pilot project, and once tangible cost and time savings are achieved, redeploying those resources to other priority initiatives – including additional virtualization, which reaps still more savings.”

    Most Agencies Implementing; Security Concerns Decline

    CDW-G’s survey found that 91 percent of agencies are considering or implementing server virtualization, a method of running multiple independent server operating systems on a single physical server. Eighty-four percent are considering or implementing client virtualization, a method of running multiple desktops and/or applications centrally in the data center, and an equal number are considering or implementing storage virtualization, a method of making many different physical storage networks and devices appear as one entity for purposes of management and administration.

    Security concerns about virtualization, the No. 2 barrier to Federal implementation, according to CDW-G’s 2009 Federal Virtualization Report, declined significantly within that group year over year. Today, Federal IT professionals rank security No. 7 among their top barriers, after concerns such as staff knowledge, budget and staff availability. State and local IT professionals in 2010 ranked security No. 8 among their top barriers, after concerns such as budget and staff availability. Across government, nearly half of IT managers report that security is actually a benefit of virtualization, CDW-G found.

    “Security is a critical consideration with any change to agency IT environments, and rightly so,” said Andy Lausch, vice president of federal sales for CDW-G. “As agencies grow their virtualization expertise, many are finding that security is actually improved with virtualization. A centralized IT environment means managers have fewer machines to monitor and manage, which can improve the agency’s overall security posture.”

    Virtualization Not One-Size Fits All; CIO Savvy Essential to Success

    While most government IT professionals are implementing or considering virtualization, respondents caution that the technique is not a one-size-fits all solution. Forty-six percent said some applications should not run on virtualized servers, for example. One respondent noted, “Some applications require such intensive resources, the cost benefit is outweighed.”

    Echoing CDW-G’s 2009 survey on Federal virtualization, respondents again said CIO virtualization proficiency is critical to successful implementation. Agencies whose IT staffs gave their CIOs an “A” for virtualization proficiency were three times more likely to experience a successful virtualization deployment than agencies with C-rated CIOs. Further, 87 percent of agencies that gave their CIO an “A” in virtualization proficiency said their IT department is appropriately staffed and trained to support a virtualized environment.

    Government IT professionals offered the following advice to their peers:
    • Lead: Secure non-IT leadership support and ensure adequate end-user education
    • Analyze: Conduct cost-benefit and performance analyses and set benchmarks for evaluating ROI
    • Plan: Audit current IT environments to determine areas that can immediately benefit from virtualization and areas that will require additional planning
    • Implement: Begin with a small-scale implementation. Apply lessons learned to a subsequent deployment

  • Nitty-Gritty of Cloud Storage: Interview with Robert Peglar, Xiotech

    Xiotech has been leading the way in redefining the value of storage since 1995 and stands as the world’s largest privately held storage company.

    The storage industry has been a hot bed for innovation and debate with discussion on local storage versus cloud storage, and the pros and cons of each.

    Xiotech offers a wide array of services that tend to cater to the small and mid-tier businesses where they have made a name for themselves. Just recently they have expanded their services to larger enterprises, and have recorded the same successes they’ve seen with their smaller partners.

    VP of Technology for Xiotech, Robert Peglar states that "Xiotech has been a pioneer of virtualization and have done innovative work in the space." Robert Peglar serves a dual role, working externally with customers and industry professional.

    The other role is the internal role, working to get product out the door, and plan a road map of the future with the technology trends that they should be taking advantage of.

    Robert shares that many things separate them from their competition to include: ease of use (through virtualization), intuitive user interfaces and web services.

    Robert Peglar

    "There’s not a real need to know all the nitty gritty of the storage equipment, web services give you what you need and you’re done," Peglar comments.

    Many companies find it hard to understand storage and for some the learning curve is too high. Xiotech provides simplicity in accessing and integrating into their own company’s growth.

    "The staff and training required is greatly different from competitors and much less rigorous. Anyone can access their storage systems. Storage should just work with automatic processes such as self healing and self checking processes without the need of constant hands on," Robert says regarding how easy it is for people to access their systems.

    Patented ISE Technology

    Xiotech is known for having patented the Intelligent Storage Element (ISE) back in 2007, offering improved performance, advanced capabilities, and improved system telemetry.

    "In typical RAID arrays the more drives you add the more the performance begins to degrade, but with the ISE in place, you see consistent and reliable performance no matter how many drives you install. This allows us to put a 5 year guarantee on their ISE products because we know it’s going to work, we put our confidence in it," Robert explains.

    The ISE offers scalability to grow with the company from 1TB to 1 PB, without seeing a single drop is performance.

    Allowing users to make adjustments to the ISE is one of their key selling points as well because Xiotech has truly focused on making their products customer centric with ease of use.

    "Standardized web services have streamlined the process which is easier for the end user to log in access, conduct business, and leave," comments Peglar.

    Cloud Storage

    Xiotech offers both virtualization and cloud storage. Some use the terms synonymously, but there is a distinct difference when looked at more closely. Virtualization would be a first step to cloud storage, but it still requires on-site equipment and man power to maintain, but simply localizes all software, applications and user information in one spot while allowing other computers to route through in order to gain access.

    Cloud storage is completely off-site, requires no equipment or manpower and simply offers you a place to store data, access software applications, share information and communications. Physical storage is slowly becoming a thing of the past, cloud computing is the way of the future.

    Currently the real drive for cloud interest is economic. The sheer cost of maintaining on-site equipment is becoming outrageously expensive considering the maintenance and manpower required to do it.

    A downside to cloud storage is the perceived security risks, perceived latency issues, and reliability issues. Robert states that "industry professionals across the globe are working on to boost the waning confidence in cloud computing due to these perceptions." There is no doubt that progress is being made everyday and that soon more and more companies will move towards the cloud as a way to manage their storage and data.

    Robert made sure to note that the same issues exist with local storage, but some put more emphasis on the cloud due to perceived lack of control. It’s easier for people to manage downtime and other issues when they feel like they have control on internal equipment, but putting that same faith on equipment that you can’t see or touch is another thing.

    When asked about how companies are balancing what needs to be physically at the location and in the cloud, Robert says, "I believe most company will end up using a combination of both, physical on premise and cloud."

    Cash for Disk Clunkers

    One of the more eco-friendly marketing efforts to assist companies around the globe was the start of the Cash for Disk Clunkers. Xiotech is once again taking the lead in encouraging companies to turn in their old arrays that are now too inefficient and less powerful to be of any use.

    "Some of the older systems require reinforced floors just to store. It’s an interesting marketing ploy, playing off the federal initiative for the cash for clunkers program. There’s been a huge user response for this to the point where they go to the offices to inquire on the process. It’s an effort to promote efficiency, getting rid of the old one which is costing a lot to maintain, to include some of their own older models," states Peglar.

    It’s definitely an interesting economic incentive for those interested in participating and a bonus with regards to their efforts to protect the environment from improper disposal of old equipment.

    Most recently Xiotech made an appearance at the SC09 Conference (Computing for a Changing World) and Interop New York where they focused on helping provide knowledge and insight to help IT and corporate decision-makers achieve business success.

  • iSuppli: Cloud Computing Can Effectively Leverage Blade Servers and Virtualization

    Although global shipments of blade servers are set to decline in 2009, the market is expected to return to robust double-digit growth during the following years as global economic conditions improve, according to iSuppli.

    Blade server shipments will amount to 1.04 million units in 2009, down 9 percent from 1.14 million in 2008. This contrasts sharply with the 31.1 percent increase in 2008.

    “In its short history, the blade server market has been able to slash through whatever obstacles the global economy and technology business have placed in front of it. However, in 2009, the blade servers couldn’t cut through the global economic downturn, causing shipments to decline for the first time ever,” said Peter Lin, the iSuppli analyst.

    iSuppli has been continually reducing its shipment forecast throughout the year. According to them, the main factor impacting the market is conservative corporate Information Technology spending at the end of 2008 and in 2009 resulting from the recession.

    Analysts expect that the blade server market will regain its edge somewhat in 2010, when the worldwide economy improves. By 2013, the market will more than double from its 2008 level to more than 2 million units.

    During the period from 2008 to 2013, the blade server market will expand at a CAGR of 13.9 percent, 10 times higher than the server market as a whole. By 2013, blades will account for 23.1 percent of all server shipments, up from 12.9 percent in 2008.

    “This clearly indicates that the blade segment will be the fastest-growing and most important segment of the server industry through 2013,” Lin said.

    Although iSuppli has reduced the total server shipment forecast due to the worldwide economic recession, the company retains its belief that virtualization offers a number of benefits in the consolidation of server infrastructure.

    “Virtualization provides a more efficient server roll-out strategy, which will accelerate enterprise adoption. Therefore, iSuppli’s virtualization forecast is a mid-to-high penetration scenario, where we believe virtualization server penetration of total server shipments will rise at a CAGR of 18.8 percent during the period from 2008 to 2013,” iSuppli states.

    The research group also believes that cloud computing can effectively leverage blade servers and virtualization. “Seeing the potential for cloud computing, there is a race among the main players, which iSuppli believes will become increasingly fierce as the demand for cloud computing keeps growing,” they say.

    According to iSuppli, cloud computing will have a negative effect on server shipments. However, they say, there will be more applications released and users will demand better service levels. Therefore, the demand from the cloud computing service providers will keep increasing, which will offset the negative effect, as they claim.

  • In The Era Of Virtualization: Interview with Richard Gilder, CEO of Intercept

    The cloud has been a popular computing term for 2009 and going into 2010 will likely see the rise of that term as content become more accessible from multiple location as opposed to being locked down by local storage.

    Already users of cloud computing are experiencing more success as costs are lowered, work and necessary files are accessible from anywhere, reducing the need to be directly in front of a computer in the office or at home. More incredible is the access mobile devices have now in accessing necessary files, content, and sites as we move into an era where virtualization becomes more commonplace.

    Intercept is a virtualization company within the UK specializing in desktop virtualization, server virtualization, application virtualization and storage virtualization. A very large part of their business is based in the cloud. Majority of our clients seek virtual hosting for their enterprise computers. They  basically help develop a system allowing generic access, via the cloud, to any application that a company has.

    When asked about the innovation of Intercept, Richard Gilder, CEO of Intercept replies, "we are now in the process of putting together some new services which are now launched which is exchange share point and we’ve got another CRM coming on site soon."

    Fear of the Cloud

    Richard Gilder

    For many companies, much like it is with anything new, there is still that hesitation when adopting new ways of doing business. The cloud has been on the receiving end of both criticism and praise, and ultimately both sides have solid cases, it’s strong companies and good practices that can prevent catastrophic data loss and ensure a smooth changeover and maintenance of the idea.

    "I think the biggest fear is actually within the wording that your putting your data and storing it ‘in the cloud’. This is actually probably the most frightening thing about it. Its going via the cloud and will be completely replicated to multiple data centers for redundancy purposes," says Richard.

    The idea of giving up that control on your content and not having it locally stored is not an uncommon fear. Looking at things on a more personal level, using simplified tools like Google Documents has raised severe concern over ownership of content placed on equipment that is not technically "yours."

    If content is suddenly gone, what is the actual cost on the client. In terms of personal documents, it may be subjective, but when working with large corporations, the loss could be financially devastating. Releasing the grip on the the way things have always been done is most certainly an uphill battle, but thee are many factors that can make cloud computing appealing to the client.

    Money savings in terms of man power and equipment is a major selling point, reduction of carbon footprint is huge for the green enthusiasts, consistent and professionally reliable customer service personnel to answer questions for clients and address their needs, and finally, a long list of client success with the transition of locally stored data and applications to virtual cloud services.

    Advancements In the Field of Virtualization

    Significant advances have been made in the field of virtualization in just the last few years, but do the clients grow at the same pace, or does Intercept see that the technology completely outpaces the needs of the user?

    "Generally the clients infrastructure is growing at a rate in which the technology is actually growing faster," says Richard. "We’ve had a tough couple of years with a country wide perspective in people spending upward with technology has lapsed slightly."

    In the last two years alone Richard has seen people and companies become incredibly receptive to change and enthusiastic with the coming technologies. Intercept tends to focus the clients on the scalability, hardware savings, and most importantly in today’s green focused society, energy savings.

    It’s apparent that technology is not the only thing advancing at great rates, but also the reduction of the carbon footprint by many companies like Intercept that offer large scale businesses the ability to tap into a virtual network in order to get their job done.

    "Its an absolute colossal benefit and I think this should be pushed more and more from a green point of view. We run green government events, we run green events across the country and we should be pushing this side of things. We all are very very worried about climate change certainly not just in the UK where it rains a lot but within the global environment." Richard responds when asked what he and Intercept feel with regards to the green impact of virtualization.

    Conferences and Expos

    Intercept is always providing briefings in the UK regarding the virtualization market. The IP Expo is their biggest event for the quarter thus far, but several Ustream events are being planned right after Christmas.

    They had 5 seminars which they ran focusing on some of their key clients, such as Windsor & Maidenhead, which show colossal cost savings up in excess of 350,000 pounds the first year, all the way through to Ed Lowry’s, which is a very large law firm in London who virtualized their infrastructure over the last couple of years.

    Plans are being made currently for the 2010 year where they hope to continue their success at demonstrating the bonuses of moving to the cloud and worrying not about the data and not about the company’s security, but rather where the company is going and how it can be more successful. Richard Gilder, CEO of Intercept says shifting that focus for them is what he likes to do.

  • AFCOM Survey: Most Data Centers Not Ready for Cyberattack

    Significant findings of AFCOM’s 2009/2010 Data Center Trends survey reveal that though threat of cyber terrorism is real, it is not being adequately addressed by the world’s keepers of the most confidential financial, military and personal data.

    Survey also reveals that despite hype around cloud computing, only 14.9 percent of data centers have deployed cloud solutions to date – and it shines a new light on the fate of mainframes.

    In addition, it reveals the government is behind its private industry counterparts in terms of greening initiatives.

    Meanwhile, it shows that the mainframe may be losing its place in worldwide data centers, as servers become more capable.

    And cloud computing, despite the hype, hasn’t pushed beyond 15 percent acceptance at this point. In comparison, 73 percent have implemented virtual processing.

    Data center greening

    The survey re-iterates that greening of the data center is no longer just a concept – it is actually taking place, and on a large scale, with 71.3 percent of all respondents indicating they are actively engaged in greening initiatives at this time.

    And while 71.3 percent are, in fact, engaged in greening, only 42.2 percent have a “formal” greening initiative.

    According to respondents, the most important results they have experienced as a result of implementing green measures are in power efficiency, 60.8 percent report they are using less power and 51.4 percent have implement cooling efficiency strategies. In addition to power and cooling efficiencies, 11.5 percent also report a significant savings in water usage.

    Data centers & cyber terrorism

    Data center professionals must be well-equipped to handle and respond to cyber terrorist attacks, but according to AFCOM’s survey, there’s considerable room for improvement.

    Respondents revealed that 60.9 percent of all data centers worldwide officially recognize cyber terrorism as a threat they need to deal with, but only a little over one-third (34.4 percent) have included it in their disaster/recovery plans, which would include their best defense plans if attacked.

    Only one in four, or 24.8 percent, has addressed cyber terrorism in their policies and procedures manuals and only 60.2 percent have a written policies and procedures manual.

    Meanwhile, less than one in five, or 19.7 percent provide any cyber terrorism employee training. On the positive side, however, 82.4 percent report that they do perform background security checks on all potential new employees, another solid defense against cyber terrorists.

    Data center consolidation

    As the economy suffers, more companies have traditionally looked to consolidation as a method of saving money. The economic downturn we are experiencing today is no exception, with 62.1 percent of all respondents either already in the process of consolidating one or more data centers, or seriously considering it.

    More than half of respondents (52.1 percent) plan to relocate their newly consolidated data center to another existing facility, or build an entirely new one to accommodate the additional requirements.

    Emerging technologies

    According to the survey, the technologies with the highest levels of adoption in today’s data centers are: virtual processing, implemented by 72.9 percent of all respondents, Web applications (70.4 percent), automation (54.8 percent) cluster computing (50. percent), and cloud computing (14.9 percent).

    Surprisingly, in addition to the slim 14.9 percent who utilize cloud computing, this technology has been considered by an additional 46.3 percent, but never implemented.

    “Our analysis shows that data center managers need to develop more comprehensive cyber terrorism policies, and get more aggressive in greening, particularly in government agencies where greening lags behind private industry. Finally, it’s time to decide where the mainframe is still viable and needed, and where high-end servers can do a more efficient job,” said Jill Eckhaus, CEO of AFCOM.

    AFCOM is the data center association that represents both the IT and facilities side of the data center. Respondents, part of AFCOM’s 4,500 member data center sites, represent 27 countries, 83 percent in the U.S. and 17 percent overseas; 60 percent are responsible for Information Technology, 31 percent Facilities and 9 percent represent other roles in the data center

    AFCOM 2010 Data Center World will take place March 7-10, 2010 at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, TN.

  • Gladinet Launches Cloud Gateway for Cloud-Hosted Desktop

    After pioneering the concept of integrating a wide range of cloud services on a PC desktop with its introduction of Cloud Desktop earlier this year, Gladinet, the ubiquitous cloud storage client, rolled out Gladinet Cloud Gateway v1.0 and Cloud Desktop v1.3.

    The company says both new products are designed to meet the cloud computing needs of small and medium-sized businesses – a category that until now was underserved by cloud service providers.

    If Cloud Desktop turns the Internet into a virtual PC, Cloud Gateway is its file server. Built on the same open platform as Cloud Desktop, teh Gateway connects individual desktops to cloud storage through one access point.

    "Cloud Gateway acts as a liaison between Cloud Desktop and cloud storage," explained Gladinet co-founder Jerry Huang.

    "Before, if a company had 100 employees using Cloud Desktop, they needed 100 connections to Amazon S3, Google Docs or whatever services their employees were using. With the Gateway, that’s all changed. Now SMBs only need Cloud Gateway to connect to cloud services, regardless of how many different interfaces or accounts they may have. The Gateway acts as a file server to the Desktops, which simply connect to it over their LAN."

    According to Huang, allowing one server to support many individual desktops, the application gives SMBs the freedom to scale back their own data storage capacity while providing centralized administration and backup capability.

    “Files stored at various offsite data centers are as easy to access as if they resided on the user’s hard drive. Thanks to Cloud Gateway’s use of smart caching, copies of files stored with cloud services are quickly accessible on local desktops – eliminating the problem of lost data in the event of cloud service business closures,” he said.

    Gladinet assures that once configured by an administrator, Cloud Gateway is available to every Cloud Desktop user in a company and requires no account information to be entered by individual users, no matter how many different cloud services they’re using.

  • Transformational Impact of Server Virtualization on IT Infrastructure

    A recent IDC survey investigating server virtualization deployments in various organizations reveals that the technology is transforming server, storage, and networking infrastructure and even more so the way their datacenters are and will be built and managed.

    "The accelerated adoption of virtualization is making the technology a crucial factor, changing buying behavior and deployments of customers throughout Europe," said Nathaniel Martinez, program director for IDC’s European Enterprise Servers group.

    According to him, customers are not only rapidly exploiting new and emerging virtualization functions such as high availability and VM mobility, they are also slowly adapting their infrastructure to virtualization requirements.

    “This in turn drives the acquisition of richer configured servers, expansion in fiber channel SANs, increased spending on iSCSI-based storage, and a boost in NAS adoption in large hosting environments," Martinez added.

    The survey also suggests that many users are pushing their virtual server environments to the limits, which is causing several problems, such as virtual server sprawl and storage I/O bottlenecks.

    22% of all survey respondents claim to have had I/O problems within the past six months and this number jumps to 40% of respondents that fit into the early adopter category.

    "Costs are obviously an important factor, but many storage administrators are looking for ways to ensure that storage supporting virtual server environments can meet current and future performance needs," said Eric Sheppard, program director for IDC’s European Storage service.

    The study, Status of x86 virtualization in European Organizations is based on a survey conducted among current server virtualization users in the U.K., Germany, and France.

  • IBM Delivers First Integrated Solid State Drive Support

    IBM announced that its storage virtualization offering, the IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller (SVC), “is now faster, more scalable, and delivers the industry’s first integrated Solid State Drive support.”

    SVC is a storage virtualization system that complements server virtualization technologies and enables a single point of control for storage resources (both IBM and non-IBM arrays) to support “improved business application availability, better IT infrastructure flexibility, and greater resource utilization.”

    Building on IBM’s Quicksilver technology, IBM is introducing SVC 5.0, which now supports Solid State Drives (SSDs).

    The tight integration of SSDs with SVC enables to take advantage of the high throughput capabilities of solid state by delivering up to 800,000 operations per second, and with response times of approximately one millisecond, nearly one-tenth of traditional disk storage.

    SVC support of SSDs is highly flexible with a minimum configuration of only one SSD, helping make the technology more affordable yet scalable without disruption to enterprise requirements, as the company claims.

    According to IBM, additional enhancements to SVC include 8Gbps Fibre Channel support, enabling higher throughout across Storage Area Networks, a tripling of the maximum cache to 24GB per engine, and support for consolidated DR configurations, enhancing SVCs business continuity capabilities.

    SVC also supports attachment to servers using iSCSI protocols over IP networks, which can help reduce costs and simplify server configuration.

    SAN Volume Controller 5.0 will be available November 6, with a US starting list price of $40,000.

  • China VoIP & Digital Telecom Virtualization Project Receives Governmental Funds


    Jinan Yinquan Technology has announced that its data center virtualization technology project has received 500,000 yuan from Shandong Economic and Information Technology Committee.

    Following the award, the wholly owned subsidiary of China VoIP & Digital Telecom said it is well positioned to take full advantage of the tremendous economic growth currently being experienced in China.

    The company is currently marketing its NP Soft Switch system in China and is testing stages of other IT products.

    Li Kunwu, chairman and CEO of CVDT

    The Chinese government established the fund to award outstanding energy-saving industrial technology projects in Shandong Province in 2009.

    Li Kunwu, chairman and CEO of CVDT, said the virtualization technology solution provided by Yinquan is in full compliance with the conservation-oriented society and Green IT concepts advocated by the country.

    "Yinquan maintains a leading position in virtualization technology, and the government’s endorsement will accelerate our expansion in the virtualization market in 2009," he said.

    "Also, with the government’s support, industrializing virtualization in China will be expedited. I believe Yinquan should have bright growth prospects in virtualization."

  • IT Execs Doubt Virtualization is Data Recovery Remedy


    Separate backup data center locations are not being used by many companies to provide the complete data-recovery system, according to research.

    Instead they are relying on failover to separate storage arrays and servers within the same physical building.

    Market researcher Harris Interactive said this is the Achilles heel of many virtualized IT environments.

    Three-quarters of IT executives surveyed believe virtualization by itself can play a major role in an enterprise disaster recovery plan.

    But they said it in no way represents a complete answer to a DR strategy, according to a "State of Disaster Recovery" survey released by Harris.

    While many IT decision-makers say they have deployed virtualization in a production setting, survey data indicated that most have not yet utilized it in a disaster-recovery situation.

    A full-fledged disaster-recovery system using virtualization replicates the system and all its data to an off-site location away from the main enterprise data center.

    In the event of the main data center going offline and out of action, virtual machines replicated at the backup location continue to keep the workloads running smoothly, with little or no latency in daily production.

    However, many companies are not able to deploy separate backup data center locations to provide the complete data-recovery system, relying instead on failover to separate storage arrays and servers within the same physical building.

    Seventy-four per cent of survey respondents indicated that virtualization can play a major role but is not a total solution for disaster recovery plans.

    One-quarter of IT respondents said they would never include virtualization technologies in their disaster recovery plans.

    Sixty per cent of respondents said they have virtualization in place now as a recovery tool from unplanned outages; only 29 per cent said they have used it successfully.

    Eight per cent said they used virtualization but that it didn’t work to their satisfaction.

    Another 29 per cent of IT decision-makers say they have deployed virtualization but not yet used it as a tool for disaster recovery.

    The survey said that over the next two years, half of IT decision-makers say they will be looking into virtualization as an option for managing unplanned outages and disaster recovery.

    About a quarter of IT executives say they will be looking into cloud computing and grid networking as potential options.

    The survey was commissioned by SunGard Availability Services, which provides disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software to more than 10,000 customers in North America and Europe.