Cloud adoption leverages virtualisation
The International Data Corporation (IDC) has revealed that according to its Worldwide Quarterly Server Virtualisation Tracker record, 19.4% of all servers shipped during the final four months of 2010 were virtualised, exactly 1% higher than that in the last quarter of the previous year.
According to Brett Waldman, a senior research analyst for software appliances and virtualisation at IDC, the rise in the figure is primarily caused by a growing demand for cloud computing systems among companies, where virtual servers play quite an important role.
Thinq says virtualised server shipments declined by 4% in 2009 compared to 2008, making this recovery particularly significant. In comparison, year-over-year growth for this sector was 28% in 2010.
End-user spending for virtualised servers was also up in the fourth quarter - by 23.3% - and increased by 13.5% over the entire year. This brought in $16.8 billion during 2010.
Global virtualisation software revenue was up by 36% for the last quarter of 2010, bringing in $877 million. Licences for virtualisation were also up by 13% for the final quarter and 32% for the full year.
According to Global Gold, Matt Eastwood, group VP of enterprise platforms at IDC, says 2010 was characterised by “strong demand” for new virtual servers to support rapidly expanding virtualised environments, with x86 systems “leading the way”.
“IDC continues to see virtualisation as a critical evolutionary step in the journey to the private cloud - with customers' environments quickly maturing and focusing on mobility, self-provisioning, and metering and chargeback capabilities,” he adds.
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