Virtual machines to outnumber physical in 2009

Virtualisation will continue to have a significant impact on the way datacentres are built and managed, with the number of virtual machine (VM) shipments now exceeding physical servers shipped, according to latest research from IDC.

 The analyst’s research showed that the number of server systems shipped with a virtualisation platform on top has increased by 26.5 percent in 2008 compared to 2007, reaching 358,000 units in Western Europe.
 
“The accelerated adoption on the x86 side of the server market is making virtualisation a crucial factor, changing the approach of suppliers and the deployment habits of customers throughout Europe,” explains Giorgio Nebuloni, research analyst with IDC European Systems and Infrastructure Solutions. “In 2008, approximately 18.3 percent of all servers shipped in Western Europe were virtualised, against 14.6 percent in 2007, and we expect the percentage to grow to almost 21 percent in 2010. More importantly, last year, and for the first time ever, the number of VM shipments exceeded the number of physical servers shipped, topping two million units.”
 
IDC also anticipates that the drop in hardware spending will lead to a break point in 2009, as VM shipments will be more than 10 percent higher than physical server shipments. It estimates in 2013, the ratio between virtual and physical server shipments will be 3:2. In parallel, the number of logical machines (physical and virtual) shipped is expected to grow strongly, and IDC projects they will increase by 15.7 percent through 2013. This makes management tools more and more pivotal, as both virtual and physical servers have to be operated, monitored, and patched.
 
“We believe the current economic crisis to be increasingly intertwined with virtualisation adoption, as the combined need to squeeze costs with the existing assets and the weak demand for new hardware are accelerating its technological impact within customer installed bases,” says Nathaniel Martinez, programme director, European Enterprise Servers. “The disruption is becoming visible on the supply side as well, as server design shifts toward virtualisation-friendly architectures in specific segments and new players enter the marketplace, attracted by the revenue potential linked with a fully virtualised x86 server stack. We see hardware vendors realigning their global strategy in order to be able to generate revenue in alternative ways once virtualisation will start impacting server refreshment volumes.”

Nebuloni, however, issued a warning to IT administrators: “Being so quick and straightforward, the deployment of virtual machines can generate sprawling environments, where IT managers lose visibility on the amount of VMs and on their actual utilisation,” he says. “The set up of operative procedures for virtualised environments requires an integration within the existing legacy infrastructure, which most of the times comprises midrange and mainframe pools. Also, in many cases new practices will have to be put in place, responding to the increasing overlap in the internal areas of responsibility of the IT staff, as storage, server, and network administrators will need to cooperate more closely to tackle interconnected issues.”

Laurent Dedenis, executive VP, EMEA at Acronis also sounded a word of caution to businesses contemplating the move to virtual machines: “Many IT managers place most of their focus on picking the right virtualisation platform and do not spend enough time considering how they will protect their data and perform backups in a virtual environment once the project is complete. Like in a physical environment, developing a disaster recovery plan should be the first thing that IT administrators address when deploying a server.

“Keep in mind that virtual servers are subject to the same variety of loss scenarios as their traditional physical counterparts (whether this be natural disasters, viruses or hard disk corruption) – as well as an array of additional ones that arise from the nature of the virtualisation technology itself. It is therefore critical that companies take their virtual backup and disaster recovery strategies seriously. Ensuring you have a powerful backup and recovery solution in place before you enter into the virtual world is vital.”

Adds Andy Hardy, managing director international sales at storage firm Compellent: “Storage virtualisation is the perfect complement to any leading virtual server platform, enabling companies to amplify the benefits of server virtualisation from the datacentre to the desktop. By removing the limits of physical drivers and aggregating them into logical virtual volumes helps companies significantly lower storage infrastructure costs and reduce energy expenditures.”

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