Citrix predicts virtualisation growth

Desktop virtualisation in Ireland is set to grow by 9.4% in 2010 and 27.4% in 2011 according to the vice-president of IT firm Citrix, reports Inside Ireland.

Conditions in the technology industry in general are set to improve, with IT spending expected to increase from -4% in 2009 to +4% towards the end of 2010, says James Stevenson, area vice-president of Citrix Systems Ireland, UK and SA.

Stevenson made this growth forecast at the annual Citrix Partner Accelerator event held in Dublin.

VAD outfit Avnet Technology Solutions (ATS) has extended its distribution deal with virtualisation powerhouse VMware to cover the Romanian market, states Channel EMEA.

ATS already holds VMware rights in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic and claims it will now be able to offer complete virtualisation solutions to its VAR base in Romania too.

“Avnet's strategy is to enable our channel partners to easily deliver the key components for virtualisation solutions,” says Dick Borsboom, president of ATS EMEA.

With tightening budgets causing CIOs to look for innovative ways of saving money in data centres, it's been suggested that more are turning to virtualisation as demand for cost-effective virtual services increases in 2010, writes Rackspace.

Writing for Computer Business Review, Janine Milne reports that big European firms are expected to spend large amounts on data centre management, including virtualisation services, as CIOs invest in methods to save money when managing their IT infrastructure.

Research from analyst firm IDC predicts spend on staff working on data centre management will grow by 10% this year, which the firm sees as being due to over-reliance on manual intervention.