study

IDC: Virtual Server Management Software Revenues to Reach $2.3 Billion in 2013 Thanks To Large-Scale Deployments

April 10, 2009 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

The ramp up of large-scale virtual server implementations around the world will drive tremendous demand for a newly defined competitive market – virtual server management software – for distributed systems (principally Windows, Unix, and Linux platforms), according to new research from IDC.

IDC says the worldwide distributed virtual server management software market had revenues of $871 million in 2008 and will approach $2.3 billion in 2013; a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.3% over the forecast period.

Additional findings from IDC’s research include the following:

Many customers have not yet integrated virtual and physical resource management processes or aligned virtual server management activities with IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).
Over the next five years, the distributed virtual server management software market will evolve and mature, creating significant opportunities for new competitors.
A strong spirit of “coopetition” will permeate this market over the next several years.

This study, Worldwide Distributed Virtual Server Management Software 2009-2013 Forecast: A First Look (IDC #217485), presents IDC’s preliminary top-down sizing of the worldwide distributed virtual server management software market in 2008 and a forecast of worldwide growth in this market for 2009-2013. This analysis is IDC’s first sizing and forecast for this emerging competitive market. Only top-line total market data is shown in this study. The study specifically excludes software related to mainframe, storage, network, or desktop virtualization management. Vendor market share data, as well as data for geographic regions, will be provided in subsequent IDC publications.

Gartner: Worldwide Virtualization Software Revenue Will Increase 43% in 2009

February 12, 2009 by Robin Wauters 2 Comments

Worldwide virtualization software revenue will increase 43 per cent from $1.9 billion in 2008 to $2.7 billion in 2009, according to Gartner. Global virtualization penetration is on pace to reach 20 per cent in 2009 from 12 per cent in 2008. Its adoption within the IT organization is driven by the need to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO), enhance the agility and speed of deployment of IT needs and minimize carbon footprint.

Gartner’s definition of the virtualisation market includes server virtualization management, server virtualization infrastructure and hosted virtual desktops (HVDs). Gartner estimates that revenue from HVDs will more than triple from $74.1 million to $298.6 million in 2009 while revenue from server virtualization management software will increase 42 per cent from $913.9 million in 2008 to $1.3 billion in 2009. Revenue from server virtualization infrastructure will grow 22.5 per cent from $917 million in 2008 to $1.1 billion in 2009.

“Virtualization helps organizations to cut costs, better utilize assets and reduce implementation and management time and complexity, all of which are crucial in this economic environment,” said Alan Dayley, research director at Gartner. “Server virtualization management will be the primary source of growth in the virtualization market as hypervisor software functionality – key to virtualizing a server – rapidly moves to hardware. Server virtualization management technology in particular is designed to reduce TCO, reduce associated availability risk, and improve quality of service. In addition, building more manageability into infrastructure components provides technology suppliers with an additional source of revenue and a basis for competitive differentiation.”

“Although HVD is an emerging technology that currently represents 11 per cent of the virtualization software revenue market, it will account for a growing proportion of corporate users through 2013. Virtual desktop infrastructure feeds additional server virtualization needs because the users’ desktop data will now need to be managed in a virtualized server environment. Maturity and acceptance will result in a significant broadening of the addressable user population by 2010 and an acceleration in deployments. Gartner advises end-user organizations to define and optimize management processes for HVDs as they did for traditional PCs. Although HVD images are centralized and more standardized, the capabilities for managing them across their full deployment life cycles remain incomplete. To remedy this, they should budget for additional point-solution management capabilities.

“End-user organizations must build cost and benefit financial models to fully understand the financial impact of implementing HVDs, and make certain that cost and benefit exist as compared with those for traditional PCs,” said Phil Dawson, research vice president at Gartner. “There is a growing number of management providers, which represents an opportunity for end-user pricing leverage, but no vendor offers a complete set of server virtualization management functionality. IT organizations will have to undertake – or outsource – their own virtualization management system integration efforts or wait for better-integrated and robust toolsets.”

“From a vendor perspective, by 2013, Microsoft will challenge VMware as the dominant vendor in the server virtualization infrastructure market and will do very well in small and midsize businesses (SMBs). The server virtualization management market is currently wide open, with more than 100 vendors supplying products that meet some of the requirements in the management stack. As the management market matures, virtualization infrastructure vendors, the “Big Four” (BMC Software, CA, HP and IBM/Tivoli) and other management vendors will build and acquire more virtualization management capabilities, thus consolidating the market. On the other hand, the HVD vendor landscape is crowded, confusing, and full of opportunists.

Gartner recommends that vendors take advantage during this disruptive period by introducing leading-edge management tools in support of virtualization initiatives and ensure that virtualization-specific management products can integrate within existing management frameworks. Mr Dayley said: “The fast-growing server virtualization management and HVD markets are less consolidated, with scores of vendors trying to stake claim in the market.”

Research and Markets’ Latest Report: “Vendor Landscape: Virtualization Competition Heats Up”

January 19, 2009 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Via VMBlog comes word of a new report from Research and Markets titled: “Vendor Landscape: Virtualization Competition Heats Up”:

“VMware retains its leadership position in this updated vendor landscape of virtualization software. However, the virtualization market has seen greatly increased competition in 2008. Microsoft has emerged as a legitimate competitor through its release of the Hyper-V hypervisor and Citrix has stormed onto the scene with its acquisition of XenSource.

This research note provides an overview of the x86 server virtualization landscape and addresses how the vendors meet the following key selection criteria:

-Vendor and product maturity.
-Advanced features and suitability for a utility infrastructure.
-Cost of licensing.

VMware remains in the leadership zone due to its market share and continued innovation toward comprehensive data center virtualization. However, where VMware was the only game in town a few short years ago, now the competition has become serious. Going into 2009, expect continued feature innovation and pressure on pricing. ”

KACE Study: Virtualization Gains Momentum With SMBs

November 18, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

KACE today announced the results of a new study that revealed more than three quarters of medium enterprises have adopted some form of virtualization. In addition the research showed the fastest growing area for virtualization is application virtualization, with 64 percent of medium organizations reporting they have either deployed or plan to do so in the next year. Also uncovered is the need for an integrated solution for systems management and virtualization. Seventy-one percent prefer to combine their systems management tools for both virtual and physical systems in a single, integrated product and many prefer their systems management tools offer integrated application virtualization management capabilities.

The research, consisting of an online survey of more than 500 respondents, the majority from medium-sized enterprises, was conducted by King Research and commissioned by KACE to gather data about the current state of virtualization adoption among medium enterprises. Focusing on hot-button issues such as growth of adoption, barriers to deployment, the importance of managing mixed physical and virtual IT environments, and specific areas of virtualization growth, the research revealed adoption of virtualization among the medium enterprise proved to be as rapid as enterprise adoption.

A summary of the key findings from the study include:

— 64 percent reported they have adopted or plan to adopt application virtualization in the near future, making application virtualization the fastest growing virtualization segment among medium enterprises surveyed;

— 85 percent of respondents revealed they have deployed virtualization technologies or plan to do so within the next twelve months;

— A reduction in hardware requirements was cited by 82 percent as the primary benefit they have achieved with virtualization;

— Over half reported cost savings as the most important consideration when justifying the cost of virtualization;

— 71 percent of respondents who have deployed application virtualization technologies cited they prefer systems management tools for virtual and physical systems offered in a single, integrated product;

— 86 percent felt that virtualization has had a positive impact on them personally — almost half cited they could do more with their budgets due directly to virtualization.

Survey metholodogy

A database of IT professionals was emailed and invited to participate in a Web survey on the topic of virtualization. A total of 519 respondents completed the survey representing hands-on IT professionals (36 percent), IT managers (32 percent), IT executives (2 percent) and others. This survey focused primarily on the responses of the 291 participants (56 percent) from mid-sized companies, those with 100-5000 employees.

The survey was conducted using Zoomerang, an online survey tool. Respondents were not compensated for participating in this survey except to be offered a copy of the final report. This survey was sponsored by KACE, a provider of IT automation appliances.

Embotics Releases White Paper on Virtualization Security

October 8, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Embotics today announced “Understanding VirtSec,” a new study that focuses on virtual server security issues inherent in IT environments. The research addresses threats posed by virtualization deployments and the technology that is available to tackle these emerging issues. Authored by David M. Lynch, vice president of marketing of Embotics, the white paper identifies immediate and potential security threats so organizations can plan accordingly.

Virtualization security is a wide concern for IT executives and Embotics’ “Understanding VirSec” summarizes the new threats and issues associated with server virtualization. The research, containing a wide range of user feedback, helps IT executives differentiate the potential future security issues from those that are present today, and offers recommendations and best practices to minimize these risks.

As virtualization deployments expand and become more complex, organizations are facing increased risk of data center security threats. Embotics’ “Understanding VirtSec” provides an overview of why IT administrators cannot rely on IT policies and processes that existed pre-virtualization, and how the impact of an uncontrolled environment in the data center is detrimental.

Hostway Research: Virtualization Boosts Adoption of SaaS

October 6, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Three-quarters of organizations believe that server virtualization will drive adoption of software-as-a-service (SaaS), according to new research released today by web hosting firm Hostway.

Over 60 per cent of respondents said that they plan to adopt SaaS in some form over the next five years, and 45 per cent believe that the technology had not taken off until recently because of the lack of available virtualization technologies. Prior to server virtualization, SaaS providers found it difficult reliably to offer software on demand, according to Hostway.

“Without virtualization the business model for SaaS would not be viable,” said Hostway director Neil Barton. “The business model for SaaS means you need to get a high level of utilization from the servers that the applications in the cloud sit on. Virtualization enables this. The message to application vendors is that you need to either SaaS-enable your applications yourself, or partner with people who can allow your applications to be offered as a service.”

Source: VNUnet