London, UK – 21 June 2007 – Virtualisation is moving into the mainstream with 50% of IT professionals already using this new technology, or planning to do so within the next 18 months, reveals a survey conducted by email research specialists, emedia, using its RapidResearch service.
The survey also indicates that over half (52%) of respondents are saying virtualisation systems introduce some new security challenges. The main ones amongst those mentioned, include consideration for patching and update (32%), guest-to-guest attacks (27%), and the addition of new host software (22%).
Interestingly, the later the implementation of the technology is scheduled for, the more apprehensive IT professionals seems to be. emedia’s survey shows that 51% of current users think that virtualisation poses some new risks, rising to 57% amongst those planning to use the new solution within the next 6 months and 66% amongst those adopting it within the next 6 to 18 months.
However, system vulnerability does not seem to be the main hurdle for non-adopters at that stage. Obstacles to virtualisation expansion for non-users include the lack of a compelling business case for total cost of ownership and return on investment (20%), priority given to other network upgrade projects (19%), cost/budget constraints (18%), insufficient staff expertise (15%) and security (9%).
IT professionals believe they can overcome these threats by taking various safety measures such as staff training/improving understanding (51%), patching/updating/hardening servers (38%), using firewalls (30%), and separating networks/subnetting/routing (25%).
When purchasing a virtualisation solution, the most important criteria respondents look for are server/physical space consolidation (64%), disaster recovery (54%), and reduced cost of ownership (49%), speed performance (48%) and ease of use (43%).
David Clark, managing director at emedia, concludes, “The advantages of virtualisation appear to be tantalising but it seems that IT managers approach it with caution.”
emedia’s online surveys quickly and effectively measure responses at a point in time and the same survey may, when executed at a different time, yield different results. Rate of change will vary according to whether the responses are based on knowledge, fashion, attitude or value, ordered by decreasing rate of change. Emedia surveys attract sufficient responses to be statistically representative and prove to be useful for later comparison.
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Editors notes
Copies of the survey are available from Omarketing at +44 (0)20 8255 5225.
The ‘RapidResearch Quarterly IT Survey’ focused on adoption of virtualisation and was concluded in May 2007. Two hundred and seventy eight senior IT directors, managers and system engineers replied. They represent most of the major industry sectors in the UK, and came from small, medium and large sized organisations.
Industry sector:
Finance 7%
Technology 16%
Government 13%
Insurance 3%
Health Care 4%
Services 6%
Communications 4%
Entertainment & Media 5%
Education 9%
Manufacturing 9%
Retail 5%
Other 20%
About RapidResearch
RapidResearch is a quick and snappy online survey tool that enables highly targeted snapshot canvassing of opinion from senior managers across UK industries using emedia’s portfolio of B2B opt-in bulletins.
More information at www.emedia.co.uk
About emedia
emedia has been providing Internet marketing solutions to the business community since 1998.
emedia specialises in permission-based email direct marketing. It serves clients by using direct response email bulletins to acquire new business, increase brand awareness, website traffic and more. The range of over 100 bulletins have over three million subscribers in total and reach professionals in a variety of sectors including IT, human resources, construction, finance, marketing, education, electronics, construction and healthcare.
emedia provides both unrivalled direct marketing experience and the technology infrastructure needed for businesses to successfully market to and communicate with thousands of our subscribers.
The emedia team handles all aspects of permission-based email messaging campaigns, including selecting the right bulletin to fit clients’ needs and target the people that they want to reach, designing email messages, testing and deploying email messaging campaigns and the tracking, reporting and analysis of results.
emedia clients include: Microsoft, BT, Croner, Gartner Group, IBM, Sage, The Chartered Institute of Marketing, Hewlett-Packard, The Open University, Totaljobs and Cranfield School of Management.
More information at www.emedia.co.uk