Slow start for virtualisation in India

Virtualisation, which has globally emerged as popular technology for companies to get more out of their IT infrastructure and investments, has got off to slow start in India, reports Deccan Herald.

The newspaper says, as they grow, companies add servers, storage and networking gear to manage rising demand for computing resources. They typically buy hardware to handle peak workloads, for example, to manage quarterly or yearly spurt in demand for processing power to close books.

But as peak workloads usually occur sporadically, expensive hardware remains severely under utilised in most companies. According to estimates, companies on an average use just 5% to 15% of their server capacity.

Business agility is slowly replacing cost as the factor driving most companies down the path of desktop virtualisation, says PC World.

According to a survey from Molten Technologies, companies are also unsure whether the drive to desktop virtualisation would be a way to simplify processes - more than half thought desktop virtualisation presented the same management challenge as their existing physical PCs.

The survey, which examined the attitudes towards virtualisation among UK businesses also found that 96% of IT professionals questioned for the survey thought that IT professionals needed to be more business-savvy.

Citrix and Microsoft have jointly unveiled a desktop virtualisation programme for partners called V-Alliance, states ARN.

To take part in the programme, partners must be a Citrix or Microsoft partner and gain virtualisation competencies across both vendors, says the publication.

Some of the benefits partners can obtain from taking part in V-Alliance include sales and marketing tools, virtual desktop demonstration tool kit, partner portal featuring access to technical resources, sales briefs and solutions collateral, it says.