Gartner predicts virtualisation boom

The EMEA market for virtualisation software is likely to be very robust in 2009, with the market for hosted virtual desktops leading the field, according to analyst company Gartner, says ZDNet.

However, the company warned the global recession could put a temporary brake even on technologies designed to save businesses money.

"The current recession that is affecting various economies in EMEA could prove to be a short-term brake on uptake of virtualised technologies, so vendors must be aware of how the technology can save organisations money by better server use and lower associated power and cooling costs within data centres," said Gartner analyst Rene Millman.

Microsoft is making it easier for enterprises to embrace desktop virtualisation, according to a report from Forrester Research, states eWeek.

In a report issued last week, Forrester analyst Natalie Lambert said new Windows licensing from Microsoft, which in the past had been a deterrent for businesses interested in desktop virtualisation, could help fuel a surge in the adoption of the technology.

"With the latest licensing rules, Microsoft has now made possible popular (desktop virtualisation) scenarios that IT ops pros have been clamouring for," Lambert wrote in the report, which was developed along with Forrester analyst Simon Yates, Christopher Voce and Margaret Ryan.

EMC hopes to address problems inhibiting the adoption of virtualisation technology in the enterprise space with a new storage product dubbed Symmetrix V-Max, reports Australian IT.

Symmetrix V-Max allows enterprises to scale up their storage requirements into the hundreds of thousands of terabytes to support work being performed by virtual machines operating across different physical servers in data centres.

While companies have been attracted to the virtualisation 'cost-cutting' sales pitch they have subsequently run into problems around managing virtual machines and required support resources.