virtualization

71 % of U.S. retailers are turning to a broad set of virtualization solutions as a means to save costs, maximize space and generally gain better control of their IT infrastructures, reports a new survey released today by Microsoft.

Microsoft’s “Virtualization in Retail Survey 2008”, conducted by independent Washington-based research firm KRC Research, found that nearly half of the participating retailers (49 %) are employing one form of virtualization within their store locations based on cost savings, while 46 % are seeking to better respond to issues and failures of applications and systems, and 43 % chose virtualization solutions to help them save space.

“Decades of installing servers, operating systems, applications, middleware and databases have taken their toll, as retailers are nearing their limits for physical space, power usage and cooling,” said Geoff Thomas, general manager of Microsoft’s U.S. Retail and Hospitality Group. “For a chain with 1,000 stores or more, adding just one more server or application per store is a significant investment. That is why virtualization is an attractive alternative, as more than 50 percent of retailers surveyed had between three and 10 servers in each of their stores already.”

Key findings of the survey included the following:

• Seventy-one percent of the retail companies surveyed are using virtualization technologies to isolate applications, data, operating system instances or transaction services in their stores or headquarters.
• Thirty-five percent of survey respondents cited using virtualization technology to make it easier to centralize deployment and ongoing management of applications. This ease of deployment is critical in today’s complex and competitive environments as retailers are striving to quickly use real-time information in such emerging store technologies as kiosks, self-service checkouts, mobile handheld devices, electronic signage and even computerized shopping carts.
• Thirty-one percent pointed to energy savings as driving their purchase of virtualization technology. The rising awareness of “green” energy initiatives, as well as the increasing power required to run and cool data centers, likely factored into this response.
• Thirty-eight percent of survey respondents cited the need to provide centralized security as a driver toward implementing virtualization within its stores or remote locations.
• Among the 29 percent of retail respondents who are not using virtualization to isolate operating system instances, applications, data or transaction services, one-quarter (25 percent) say their company is considering it. Among those not considering implementing virtualization technologies, more than half say the main reason is cost (51 percent).

Microsoft’s “Virtualization in Retail Survey 2008” was conducted via telephone by KRC Research from Feb. 21 to March 10, 2008, and included responses from 205 interviews in the United States with technology decision-makers who have IT management responsibilities for store locations or regional or national headquarters for retail companies with annual revenues of $250 million or more.

[Source: WinBeta]