Virtualisation could save govts billions

Information Week writes.

The use of virtualisation is growing among federal, state and local governments, with the feds slightly ahead of their state and local counterparts in implementing the technology, according to the "Virtualisation Vacuum: The 2012 Government Virtualisation Study" by MeriTalk.

Network Computing says that, among federal agencies, 57% believe server virtualisation takes priority over desktop virtualisation, compared with 64% of state and local respondents.

Although some form of desktop virtualisation will be implemented by government agencies, less than one in 10 plans to virtualise all applications for all users.

Cloud-based computing systems will allow for virtual desktops, which telework advocates say will help employees be as productive at home as they are in the office, Nextgov notes.

About 37% of the federal IT workload is done on virtualised servers and technology managers expect that to grow to about 63% by 2015, the survey found.