DORA EMA Virtualization Trands Forecasts Recommendations

Virtualization and Management:
Trends, Forecasts, and

Recommendations
An ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES® (EMA™) Research Report
April 2008
Sponsored by:
Table of Contents
Executive Summary..................................................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Uncovering Virtualization.................................................................................................................................... 3
Researching Virtualization .................................................................................................................................. 4
Realities of Virtualization Deployment................................................................................................................... 5
Workloads................................................................................................................................................................ 5
Drivers...................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Satisfaction.............................................................................................................................................................. 7
Cost Savings............................................................................................................................................................ 8
Addressing Specific Needs................................................................................................................................... 8
Comparing Critical Drivers with Actual Outcomes........................................................................................ 9
Virtualization Hype..............................................................................................................................................10
Barriers To Virtualization Success.................................................................................................................... 11
Case Study – Managing Complexity with Configuresoft ECM......................................................................... 13
Multiple Layers of Complexity................................................................................................................................ 14
Virtualization Platforms...................................................................................................................................... 15
Virtualization Technologies................................................................................................................................ 16
Virtualization Vendors and Products............................................................................................................... 19
Server Virtualization ................................................................................................................................. 19
Operating System Virtualization ............................................................................................................ 21
Application Virtualization......................................................................................................................... 22
Desktop Virtualization ............................................................................................................................. 23
Grid/Cluster Computing.......................................................................................................................... 24
Overall Vendor Penetration...................................................................................................................... 25
The Virtualization Complexity Triple-Threat ..................................................................................................... 26
Case Study – Meeting Virtualization Audits with Tripwire Enterprise............................................................ 30
The State of Virtualization Management.............................................................................................................. 31
Perceptions of Virtualization Management .................................................................................................. 31
Integrating Virtual and Physical Management .............................................................................................. 34
Integrating Virtualization Management with Enterprise IT Management............................................... 35
Case Study – Ensuring Virtualization Performance with eG Innovations eG Monitor for VMware . .... 37
The Human Factor....................................................................................................................................................38
The Ongoing Virtualization Skills Crisis......................................................................................................... 38
Segregation of Virtualization Management Teams....................................................................................... 39
Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

©2008 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Case Study – Ensuring Virtualization Compliance with Tripwire Enterprise................................................ 42
From 2006 to 2008 – and Beyond.......................................................................................................................... 43
Increasing Penetration of Virtualization Technologies................................................................................ 43
A Warning about Growth for End-User Facing Virtualization Technologies................................ 45
Changing Virtualization Platforms................................................................................................................... 47
Changing Virtualization Workloads.................................................................................................................. 48
Changing Virtualization Drivers....................................................................................................................... 50
Changing Perceptions of Virtualization Management................................................................................. 51
The Growing Pain Of Virtualization Skills.................................................................................................... 54
EMA Perspective........................................................................................................................................................55
Key Outcome – Treat Virtualization as a Strategy, not a Project............................................................... 55
Key Outcome – Prepare for Multiple Layers of Complexity..................................................................... 56
Key Outcome – Adapt to the Changing Virtualization Landscape........................................................... 56
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................................58
Appendix A: Virtualization Definitions and Taxonomy..................................................................................... 59
Virtualization.........................................................................................................................................................59
Hypervisor.............................................................................................................................................................59
Hardware Virtualization...................................................................................................................................... 59
Server Virtualization............................................................................................................................................59
Paravirtualization..................................................................................................................................................59
Operating System (OS) Virtualization............................................................................................................. 60
Application Virtualization.................................................................................................................................. 60
Application Isolation...........................................................................................................................................60
Software Streaming..............................................................................................................................................60
Server-Based (or Remote) Desktop Virtualization........................................................................................ 60
Client-Based (or Local) Desktop Virtualization............................................................................................. 61
Storage Virtualization..........................................................................................................................................61
Network Virtualization ...................................................................................................................................... 61
Data Virtualization...............................................................................................................................................61
Clustering...............................................................................................................................................................61
Grid Computing...................................................................................................................................................62
Software-As-A-Service (SaaS)............................................................................................................................ 62
Thin Client............................................................................................................................................................62
Appendix B: Methodology and Demographics................................................................................................... 63

©2008 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Executive Summary
Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) defines virtualization as “a technique for abstracting (or hid-
ing) the physical characteristics of computing resources from the way in which other systems, applications, or end users
interact with those resources.” This includes many technologies, such as server virtualization, operating
system virtualization, application virtualization, desktop virtualization, network virtualization, storage
virtualization, grid and cluster computing and more.
In 2008, EMA conducted extensive research into virtualization and the IT management implications
of all these technologies. This report outlines the important findings of a survey of 627 respondents
involved with virtualization, compares the results with previous EMA research from 2006, examines
the trends in virtualization from 2006 to 2008, forecasts the future for virtualization management in
2008 and beyond, provides several case studies based on focal interviews, and provides critical recom-
mendations for enterprises and vendors to accommodate these trends.
Key findings include:
Workloads – Virtualization deployments for all significant workloads have increased since 2006. With
79% of all respondents, test and development remains the most common use case for virtualization,
but almost three-quarters of all enterprises are now using virtualization for production applications.
Drivers – With 69% of respondents, server consolidation and improved hardware utilization is now
the strongest single driver for virtualization. As in 2006, the other leading drivers are still about service
and performance, such as reducing downtime (62%), enabling disaster recovery and business continu-
ity (60%), increasing flexibility and agility (59%), and achieving SLAs (44%).
Satisfaction – Satisfaction with virtualization is lukewarm, but still positive – just 30% of enterprises
are completely satisfied, but 87% expressed at least some satisfaction, while less than one percent
specifically expressed dissatisfaction. In several areas actual achievements are marginally below expec-
tations – probably due to over-hyped expectations.
Outcomes – In 93% of enterprises, virtualization is effectively addressing multiple objectives; in 58% of
enterprises, it is achieving five or more; and in 10% of enterprises, it is achieving 10 or 11 key objectives
simultaneously. Some marginal underachievement compared to expectations is most likely a reflection
of the hype in the virtualization market, rather than any fundamental failings in the technology.
Barriers – Human issues remain the biggest barriers to virtualization, especially ‘political’ or coopera-
tion issues across IT and/or business areas (43% of respondents), lack of time and/or people (40%),
and lack of skills (34%). Over a third of all enterprises (35%) indicated application support was still a
critical barrier.
Platforms, Technologies, Vendors – with 89% of all deployments, Microsoft Windows is the most
popular virtualization platform, but with 67% Linux is not far behind. Server virtualization is the most
popular technology, with 80% of deployments, but Operating System virtualization is also popular with
71%. VMware is the leading vendor, with current or planned deployments in 89% of all respondents,
but it is under a more serious threat than ever before with Microsoft hot on its heels at 81%, and Citrix
well within reach at 60%. Microsoft Hyper-V will be a serious challenger in the server virtualization
space – although it is still only beta, already 32% of respondents are planning to deploy it. Similarly,

Page ©2008 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Citrix XenDesktop will be a strong challenger in the desktop virtualization space – it is also still in beta,
yet 18% of respondents are already planning to deploy it.
Multiple Layers of Complexity – 79% of enterprises are deploying virtualization in a heterogeneous
mix of platforms (Windows, Linux, UNIX, etc.). Over 90% are using a mix of virtualization tech-
nologies (server, OS, storage, etc). Over 90% of all enterprises have multiple virtualization vendors
(VMware, Microsoft, Citrix, etc.); 50% have four or more. On average, each enterprise has 11 different
platforms, technologies and vendors to deal with in their virtualization environment alone. Only 2%
have just one of each; almost 20% are dealing with 15 or more.
Ease of Management – A majority of enterprises rate all management disciplines as either easier or the
same in a virtual environment. Of the minority, security is rated by more enterprises as being harder
under virtualization, followed by problem and incident management, capacity management, and con-
figuration management. However, every management discipline is rated harder in 2008 than it was in
2006 as more enterprises realize the difficulties of virtualization management.
Management Tools – Almost 10% of all enterprises are using no virtualization management tools
at all. 29% use the tools that came bundled with their virtualization technologies, and 20% use addi-
tional tools from their virtualization vendors. 10% use third-party tools designed for managing virtual
environments, but only 14% use management technologies designed for both virtual and physical
environments.
Managing Multiple Layers of Complexity – Only 19% of enterprises have management tools that can
manage all of the virtualization platforms in use in these enterprises; only 22% can manage all of the
virtualization technologies; and only 26% can manage all the virtualization vendors. Virtualization
management tools do not tend to integrate with the rest of the IT management stack, or align IT
services with business objectives.
Skills Issues – Only 31% of all enterprises stated that they definitely have the right skills to manage their
virtual systems. 20% of enterprises that have already implemented virtualization said specifically that
they do not have appropriate skills. The availability of virtualization skills has become worse since
2006, when 43% stated that they definitely had the right skills. Skills shortage will continue to be a major
problem for enterprises deploying virtualization.
Penetration - penetration of virtualization within enterprises has grown from 2006 to 2008 across all
virtualization technologies by 26% – exactly as EMA predicted in 2006. Server virtualization has grown
by 20% and OS virtualization by 21% – again matching EMA’s 2006 predictions. Storage virtualization
and file system virtualization grew as predicted at over 30% – specifically, at 36% and 37% respectively.
Desktop and application virtualization both grew marginally more slowly than predicted, at 20% and
18% respectively.
Expanding Deployments – Based on current enterprise planning, EMA estimates an increase in the
virtualization market of around 20% p.a. across all virtualization technologies. However, physical
deployment will continue to be the dominant paradigm at least through 2010. EMA believes desktop
and application virtualization in particular will grow less than even enterprises expect – just as they did
from 2006-2008 – due to difficulties exposing end users to virtualization technologies.

©2008 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Page
Introduction
Uncovering Virtualization
EMA defines virtualization as:
“a technique for abstracting (or hiding) the physical characteristics of computing resources from the way in which
other systems, applications, or end users interact with those resources”
This includes making a single physical resource (such as a server, an operating system, an application,
or storage device) appear to function as multiple logical resources; or it can include making multiple
physical resources (such as storage devices or servers) appear as a single logical resource.
The most explored virtualization technology is Server Virtualization – a method of running multiple
guest operating environments directly on top of base hardware, sharing fine-grained resources (CPU,
memory, etc,), without requiring a complete host operating system. However, virtualization takes many
different forms, including, for example:
• O
perating System Virtualization – running multiple logical (or virtual) operating systems (or
“guests”) on top of a fully functioning base (or “host”) operating system
• A
pplication Virtualization – providing an individual application to an end user without needing
to completely install this application on the user’s local system
• D
esktop Virtualization – providing a complete compute environment (with an independent OS,
applications, data, etc.) to an end user, independent of their physical desktop
• S torage Virtualization – providing access to data storage without needing to define to systems
and applications where the storage is physically located or managed
• N
etwork Virtualization – abstracting fine-grained network services, resources, or components
from the systems, applications, and network subsystems that utilize or communicate with those
components
This is far from a complete list. Streaming, isolation, grid and cluster computing, and more are all
virtualization technologies. Even other abstracting technologies like software-as-a-service (SaaS) and
service oriented architectures (SOAs) could be considered forms of virtualization. For a complete tax-
onomy of virtualization, including definitions of all these technologies, please refer to Appendix A.
This research looks across the entire range of virtualization technologies, platforms, vendors, drivers,
use cases, outcomes, and more – with a particular focus on managing virtual environments – to give the
most complete understanding to date of the most important virtualization and management trends,
forecasts, and recommendations.

Researching Virtualization
In February 2008, EMA conducted primary research (including an extensive survey, one-on-one focal
interviews, and several case studies) into the primary use cases, drivers, outcomes, satisfaction ratings,
barriers, platforms, technologies, vendors, penetration levels, management disciplines, management
software, management processes, and various human issues, across the entire virtualization landscape.
A qualified set of over 35,000 IT professionals from around the world were invited to participate in
a Web-based survey crafted independently by EMA’s expert analysts. All respondents self-identified
as being active participants in their virtualization environment, and as having a current or immediate
virtualization deployment. In all, around 90% of respondents had already implemented virtualization,
and 60% had virtualization technologies implemented for more than 12 months.
This survey netted 627 responses, primarily from decision makers and technical evaluators in IT infra-
structure planning, Data Center operations, and IT architecture. Companies represented include all
sizes, from small and medium businesses to large and very large enterprises, across multiple different
industries and from all major geographies. A complete description of the survey methodology and
demographics can be found in Appendix B: Methodology and Demographics.
This EMA Research Report analyses this primary data, and provides expert insight and analysis into
virtualization and management trends, forecasts, and recommendations.

Realities of Virtualization Deployment
Workloads
EMA started by asking respondents to categorize the workloads they are running in their virtualization
deployments.
W hat types of IT w orkloads have you deployed virtualiz ation technology for?
Tes t and D evelopm ent 79%
P roduc tion Applic ation S ervers 74%
E nd-Us er Applic ations 54%
D is as ter R ec overy S ys tem s 51%
P roduc tion D atabas e S ervers 50%
P roduc tion W eb S ervers 47%
D ata/S torage Managem ent S ys tem s 47%
E nd-Us er D es ktops 45%
P roduc tion Middlew are S ys tem s 41%
O ther 1%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
With 79% of all respondents, test and development remains the most common use case for virtualization.
EMA recommends this as an ideal starting point for virtualization because it delivers significant results,
yet is isolated from the day-to-day business for end users, making it both safe and effective. Similarly,
using virtualization for disaster recovery workloads (as 51% of respondents are doing) is a high-return
use case that has a very low potential for negative impact on end users or external customers.
Almost three-quarters (74%) of all enterprises are now using virtualization for production applications,
making it the second most prevalent use case. This alone is enough to indicate that virtualization is a
prime-time technology, no longer relegated just to test systems, DR, or back-office systems like file
or DHCP servers. Especially alongside production Web servers (47%), production database servers
(50%), and even production middleware systems (41%), this continues to reinforce the conclusion (first
noted by EMA in 2006) that a significant volume of virtualization
is deployed for three-tier production workloads. Focal interviews
with virtualization users (such as in the case studies in this report, Almost three-quarters (74%)
in other EMA publications, and in unpublished discussions) reveal
virtualization is used for many mission-critical workloads, like
of all enterprises are now
mobile banking, e-mail servers, ERP systems, CRM applications using virtualization for
and more. production applications,
The rise of desktop and application virtualization, and the growth making it the second
of server and OS virtualization for production applications, con- most prevalent use case

tribute to the 54% of enterprises that are deploying virtualization for end-user application workloads,
and the 45% that are using it for end-user desktop workloads.
Virtualization is also in use by 50% of enterprises for production database servers. Historically, along-
side other I/O and resource intensive systems (e.g., e-mail servers), enterprises have appeared reluctant
to virtualize these workloads outside of test and development. Clearly, that is no longer the case.
Drivers
P lease rate the importance of each of the follow ing drivers
in your decision to implement virtualiz ation
S erver c ons olidation/utiliz ation 69% 30% 1%
R educ e dow ntim e 62% 33% 5%
R educ e hardw are c os ts 62% 35% 3%
E nable D R /B C P 60% 37% 4%
Inc reas ed flexibility/agility 59% 36% 4%
Low er adm in/m gm t c os ts 53% 43% 4%
Meet S LAs 44% 48% 8%
Im prove s ec urity and c ontrol 41% 49% 10%
R egain/rationaliz e floor s pac e 38% 43% 19%
R educ e s oftw are c os ts 37% 53% 11%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
C ritic al S om ew hat im portant Not S o Im portant
Cited as critical by 69% of respondents, server consolidation and improved hardware utilization – a
particular strength of server and OS virtualization – is now the strongest single driver for virtualization.
As a result, 62% are specifically looking to reduce their hardware costs, and 38% expect to regain or
rationalize their floor space requirements. Other direct cost savings tend to rate much lower – lowering
administration and management costs is critical to 53% of respondents, but reducing software costs is
the least important of all listed options, regarded as a critical driver
by only 37% of respondents.
The other leading drivers are substantially about service and per- Cited as critical by 69%
formance. Reducing downtime is the second highest driver, rated of respondents, server
as critical by 62% of respondents. This is likely due to virtualization consolidation and improved
features and capabilities such as high availability, live migration,
hardware independence, and more. Similarly, enabling better (faster, hardware utilization is
more effective) disaster recovery and business continuity outcomes now the strongest single
was rated as critical by 60% of respondents, and 44% considered driver for virtualization
ensuring better achievement of SLAs to be a critical driver. In addi-

tion, 59% were looking at increased flexibility and agility – such as faster provisioning – to be a critical
driver, further reinforcing the overall goal of improving IT performance for end users.
Satisfaction
O verall, how satisfied are you w ith your V irtualiz ation solutions?
0% 1%
1 2%
3 0% C om pletely D is s atis fied
S om ew hat D is s atis fied
Neither S atis fied nor D is s atis fied
S om ew hat S atis fied
C om pletely S atis fied
5 7%
Enterprise satisfaction with virtualization is lukewarm, but mostly positive. Just 30% are completely
satisfied with their virtualization deployment, while more than half (57%) are merely somewhat satis-
fied, and a further 12% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. In a two-factor analysis, 87% of all enter-
prises expressed satisfaction with virtualization, and less than one
percent specifically expressed dissatisfaction. Clearly, virtualization
delivers more than it disappoints. However, with 70% still express- In a two-factor analysis,
ing something other than complete satisfaction, this does point to
some difficulties, or some underachieved expectations.
87% of all enterprises
expressed satisfaction
with virtualization, and
less than one percent
specifically expressed
dissatisfaction. Clearly,
virtualization delivers
more than it disappoints.

Cost Savings
O verall, has your virtualiz ation deployment resulted in real, measurable cost savings?
21%
Y es
No
8% D on’t know
71%
One expectation that virtualization clearly delivers on is cost reduction – 71% of all enterprises have
achieved real and measurable cost savings from their virtualization deployment. Only 8% have not.
Virtualization can certainly save significant costs in hardware, software, power, management, and more,
so it is very positive to see a vast majority of organizations reaping these rewards.
Addressing Specific Needs
W hich of the follow ing needs are effectively being addressed

by your current implementation of virtualiz ation solutions?
S erver c ons olidation/utiliz ation 73%

R educ e hardw are c os ts 69%
Inc reas ed flexibility/agility 59%
R educ e dow ntim e 53%
E nable D R /B C P 51%
Low er adm in/m gm t c os ts 50%
R egain/rationaliz e floor s pac e 48%
Meet S LAs 35%
R educ e s oftw are c os ts 34%
Fas ter problem res olution 33%
Im prove s ec urity and c ontrol 31%
O ther 0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
At a more granular level, virtualization is delivering many valuable outcomes. The single most impor-
tant driver for virtualization – server consolidation and improved utilization – is certainly being met,
and even overachieved. While 69% of enterprises consider this a critical driver, 73% are finding this to
be a successful outcome. Similarly, where 62% of enterprises see reducing hardware costs as a critical
driver, 69% say virtualization is effectively delivering that outcome.

Virtualization also delivers tangible cost savings beyond just hard-
ware cost reduction – 34% of respondents report that virtualization
also effectively reduces their software costs, and for exactly half of The single most important
all respondents it leads directly to lower costs for administration driver for virtualization
and management.
– server consolidation
Almost 60% are finding that virtualization delivers on their needs
and improved utilization
for improved flexibility and agility, such as with faster provision-
ing. The abilities of virtualization to deliver a dynamic and respon- – is certainly being met,
sive enterprise, with IT able to provision servers and applications and even overachieved.
rapidly to respond to business needs, is a clear and impressive
outcome from virtualization.
Similarly, the ability of virtualization to deliver a highly available, highly responsive business environ-
ment based on a reliable fault tolerant IT infrastructure is also remarkable. 53% of respondents find
that virtualization directly reduces downtime, 51% find that it improves their disaster recovery and
business continuity processes, 35% find that it helps them meet or exceed their service level agree-
ments, and 33% find that virtualization enables them to resolve problems faster.
Comparing Critical Drivers with Actual Outcomes
V ariance B etw een C ritical D rivers and E ffective O utcomes for V irtualiz ation
R educ e s oftw are c os ts -3%
Low er adm in/m gm t c os ts -3%
R educ e dow ntim e -9%
E nable D R /B C P -9%
Meet S LAs -9%
Im prove s ec urity and c ontrol -10%
-15% -10% -5% 0% 5% 10% 15%
U nde rachie v e ing E xpe ctations | O v e rachie v e ing E xpe ctations
Unfortunately, the level of achievement for several outcomes – while undeniably positive – under-
achieves on critical expectations, albeit marginally. The variance between the percentage of respon-
dents nominating particular issues as critical drivers for deploying virtualization, and the percentage
nominating those same issues as effectively being addressed by virtualization, is mostly negative. In
areas like improving service to end users – meeting SLAs, improving continuity, reducing downtime

– and in security and control, virtualization is not delivering
on critical needs as often as enterprises are expecting.
The variance is not overwhelming – within 10% on both In 93% of enterprises
sides – but it is clearly disappointing for many enterprises. virtualization is effectively
This is not to say that virtualization is failing to deliver effec- addressing multiple objectives;
tive outcomes. Only three respondents (a statistically insig- in 58% of enterprises it
nificant number) reported that virtualization had not effec-
tively achieved any of the suggested outcomes. By contrast,
is achieving five or more;
in 93% of enterprises virtualization is effectively addressing and in 10% of enterprises
multiple objectives; in 58% of enterprises it is achieving five it is achieving 10 or 11 key
or more; and in 10% of enterprises it is achieving 10 or 11 objectives simultaneously.
key objectives simultaneously.
Virtualization Hype
Any marginal underachievement is most likely a reflection of the hype in the virtualization market,
rather than any fundamental failings in the technology. As a (very) rough measure of this hype, an
Internet search on “virtualization” at the time of writing reveals around 53,000 news articles for all
periods going back to 1997. Of these, approximately half appeared in just the last 18 months, and in
random samples, media coverage of virtualization appears to be mostly positive.
V Mw are S hare P rice - Aug 2007 to Mar 2008
$140.00
$120.00
$100.00
$80.00
Share Price
$60.00
$40.00
$20.00
$0.00
Aug-07 S ep-07 O c t-07 Nov-07 D ec -07 Jan-08 Feb-08 Mar-08
D ate
This hype is also exemplified by the roller coaster ride of market leader VMware (NYSE:VMW). Its
share price went from a post-IPO price of $57 in August 2007, to a high of $124, before sliding back
to below the IPO price at the time of writing. Comparing its extraordinary price-to-earnings (P/E)
: See http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=virtualization for a current view.
: See http://finance.google.com/finance?&q=VMW for a current valuation.

©2008 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Page 10
ratio of over 75 with IT stalwarts like Google (P/E: 32), Microsoft (P/E: 16), IBM (P/E: 16), and its
parent company EMC (P/E: 19), this indicates that clearly there is a lot of hype in the virtualization
market. VMware dominates the virtualization market in sev-
eral important categories, but its share price appears driven
by inflated expectations more than actual earnings. Enterprises need to curb
This hype has tended to overexcite enterprise expectations. their enthusiasm, and
There is little doubt that virtualization is delivering signifi- approach virtualization with
cant value – both measurable and intangible – to the major- marginally more modest
ity of enterprises that are deploying it. However, enterprises
need to curb their enthusiasm, and approach virtualization expectations, and with
with marginally more modest expectations, and with a well- a well-informed, broad-
informed, broad-reaching strategy that aims to achieve mul- reaching strategy that aims to
tiple objectives.
achieve multiple objectives.
Barriers To Virtualization Success
W hat are the greatest barriers that your organiz ation has/had to overcome w hen
implementing or expanding your virtualiz ation deployment?
In te rn a l ‘p o litica l’ issu e s 43%
L a ck o f tim e a n d /o r p e o p le 40%
Ap p lica tio n s a re u n su p p o rte d 35%
In su fficie n t virtu a liza tio n skills 34%
Hig h co st o f a va ila b le so lu tio n s 30%
D ifficu lty id e n tifyin g u se ca se (s) 20%
So lu tio n s la ckin g fu n ctio n a lity 16%
Pro vin g a u d it co m p lia n ce 16%
O th e r 3%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
Originally highlighted in EMA 2006 virtualization research, human and political issues remain the
biggest barriers to virtualization. The most significant barrier to virtualization deployment is internal
‘political’ or cooperation issues across IT and/or business areas, cited by 43% of respondents. Lack
of time and/or people is a major issue for 40% of enterprises, and a lack of appropriate virtualization
skills was a major concern for 34% of enterprises. For more detailed analysis of these human issues,
see The Human Factor below.

Page 11 ©2008 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The third highest barrier to implementation is a very disappointing reflection on application vendors
and developers. Over a third of all enterprises (35%) indicated that lack of support for their applica-
tions is among their greatest barriers to virtualization deployment. In 2006 this was a significant issue,
which many application vendors have still not addressed. If they continue to ignore the vast wave of
virtualization, application vendors will be left behind, and rightly so. At this stage, and in light of the
significant cost-benefit of virtualization, enterprises should strongly consider dropping any vendor
that does not support its applications in a virtual environment.
Surprisingly, the high cost of solutions – to buy and to implement
– was cited by 30% of enterprises as among their greatest barriers. At this stage, and in light
This bodes well for the future of high quality, free open source
options like Xen and OpenVZ, free proprietary offerings like
of the significant cost-
Microsoft Virtual Server and Virtual PC, and relatively inexpensive benefit of virtualization,
open source bundles from Citrix or Virtual Iron. However, there enterprises should strongly
are few free or low-cost solutions for desktop, application, storage, consider dropping any
or network virtualization, for example, and implementation will
always incur some costs. vendor that does not
support its applications in
With the many significant workloads and positive outcomes out-
lined above for virtualization, it is surprising to see that 20% of a virtual environment.
enterprises actually see a substantial difficulty identifying or defin-
ing appropriate use case(s) for virtualization. Also surprising is
that, separate from cost, 16% are unable to find available virtualization solutions with the functionality
to do what they need. Also given the difficulties in security administration, management, and control,
it is surprising that only 16% of enterprises cited audit and compliance concerns as a significant bar-
rier. EMA expects this concern to rise as the market understands more completely the complexity of
virtualization security.
Unfortunately, 69% of enterprises responded that more than one issue was their greatest barrier,
and 41% needed to overcome three or more. Virtualization is clearly not always an easy strategy to
implement or expand. On a positive note, a significant number – 30% – only selected a single issue
as the greatest barrier to overcome, and only 5% – a barely statistically significant percentage – cited
five or more.

Case Study – Managing Complexity with
Configuresoft ECM
Larry is Assistant Vice President of Windows Server Operations for a leading North American
finance company with over a million customers and more than $10 billion in loan assets. Their
IT organization of around 170 people supports a large partitioned iSeries (AS/400) system, 40
IBM AIX servers, and 340 physical and virtual Windows Servers. The company started using
virtualization in 2002, and today has 14 VMware ESX hosts running 160 virtual Windows guests
– accounting for around 95% of development, 75% of QA, 40% of DR, and 25% of their pro-
duction systems.
However, they faced a growing problem managing virtual and physical system configurations.
Their existing audit and reporting tool, says Larry, was simply “not working very well. I had
no way to fix problems, and not even an easy way to report on them,” especially in the virtual
environment. “With [VMware’s] VirtualCenter, we had to dive deeply into each server and do
manual comparisons. That’s alright for one or two systems, but once you get 14 or more, you need
a unified view.”
Larry needed “to view configuration settings across all systems at once, with a single view”
– not just virtual systems, but also their physical infrastructure including Windows, AIX, Active
Directory, Microsoft Exchange, and SQL-Server. He also needed to perform remediation, not just
reporting. “There is a big difference between being able to report a problem and being able to fix
it,” says Larry. “Really being able to fix problems is a big thing for me.”
After rejecting several alternatives that did not satisfy his requirements, Larry chose Configuresoft
ECM to solve the configuration management problems in his diverse physical and virtual environ-
ment. The results have been remarkable.
“Now I can see virtual host and guest configurations across the board,” says Larry, including
“misconfigured NICs, misconfigured settings – all these things that would take an hour to under-
stand, now I can have a report in minutes.” As a result, they “have eliminated over 6000 deviations
from our standards in 3 months. If I had to do that manually, I could see that as a 2-3 year project.
It has paid for itself in just 3 months.”
It has also delivered productivity and staffing improvements. “We wrote script after script just to
manage the environment,” says Larry. “Now we can eliminate them all. I don’t have to worry about
maintaining them, or keeping a scripter on staff.” It has also helped Larry to achieve much better
audit compliance, because they are now “much better at finding changes that are not appropriate.
I don’t think (the auditors) are going to find any problems this time.”
For business users, all they see is available systems. “They don’t need to know about the technol-
ogy,” says Larry, “but by reduced downtime from us fixing and preventing bad changes, and
protecting against potential intrusion, they will experience less downtime.”
With cost savings, improved productivity, better audit compliance, and higher availability,
Configuresoft ECM has clearly delivered significant benefits in this complex physical and virtual
infrastructure.

Multiple Layers of Complexity
Enterprises deploying virtualization are facing a major management problem – the multiple layers of
complexity that inevitably lead to a complex, disjointed, heterogeneous environment. These multiple
layers of complexity include:
• Multiple business and IT drivers
• Multiple outcomes
• Many different barriers
• Multiple management teams
• Multiple management disciplines
• Multiple management tools
• Etc.
Moreover, as this research shows, by far the majority of enterprises also need to deal with a physical
environment, typically also consisting of multiple platforms, technologies, and vendors. Virtualization
layers all of its complexity not as a replacement for, but directly on top of, the existing complexity of
a physical IT environment.
However, EMA believes that the three most important layers of complexity, which raise the biggest
management issues, are:
• Multiple virtualization platforms
• Multiple virtualization technologies
• Multiple virtualization vendors

Virtualization Platforms
O n w hat operating systems or platforms are you using

or planning to use virtualiz ation technology?
W indow s 89%
Linux (non-m ainfram e) 56%
S torage D evic es 38%
UNIX 34%
Netw ork D evic es 24%
S ys tem i (AS /400) 16%
z /Linux 11%
z /O S 7%
O ther 0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
With 89% of deployments centered on Microsoft Windows, it is clearly the most prominent platform
in the virtualization landscape. This certainly reflects the dominance of Windows on the desktop, and
previous EMA research showing Windows Server to be the dominant data center platform – and one
of the fastest growing. With 67% of all deployments, Linux (including both non-mainframe, mainly
x86 Linux with 56%; and mainframe Linux with 11%) is not far behind Windows in the virtualization
landscape. EMA research shows Linux in the data center is growing faster than any other platform.
Whether virtualization is driving this growth, or this growth is driving virtualization, is uncertain, but
they are certainly well-correlated. Storage devices are the third most common platform for virtualization,
at 38%, while UNIX – which EMA research shows is losing mar-
ket share to both Windows and Linux – comes a relatively strong
fourth with 34% of all deployments. With 89% of deployments
Mainframe z/OS comes in at eighth, with only 7%. However, centered on Microsoft
when taken together with mainframe Linux, z Series mainframe is Windows, it is clearly the
the sixth most popular virtualization platform. This is, of course,
by volume – considering that one z10 could replace as many as most prominent platform in
1000 x86 Linux systems, it could even have the highest penetration the virtualization landscape.
in terms of processing power. With 67% of all deployments,
Other virtualization platforms of choice include network devices, Linux is not far behind.
i5/OS (formerly AS/400), and various other platforms (primarily
Mac OS X and VMS).

Virtualization Technologies
The sample set in this research consisted of enterprises that have or immediately plan to deploy
virtualization; it was therefore not suitable to determine overall market penetration of each virtualization
technology. However, it was perfect for determining the relative penetration of each virtualization tech-
nology within the average enterprise. EMA asked enterprises to quantify the penetration level in their
environment for each of the various virtualization technologies – ‘none’, ‘few’, ‘some’, ‘half ’, ‘most’,
or ‘all’.
P ercentage of respondents reporting at least some of

their environment is using the follow ing technologies
S erver 80%
OS 71%
S torage 67%
File S ys tem 60%
Applic ation 59%
Netw ork 54%
D es ktop 46%
S tream ing 43%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Among these enterprises with imminent or current virtualization

deployments, server virtualization is the most popular technology,
with 80% having deployed it in at least some of their environment. Among enterprises with
Operating System virtualization is also widely deployed, with 71% imminent or current
reporting at least some of this technology in their environment.
Storage virtualization is also very strong, and is deployed in at
virtualization deployments,
least some of the environment by 67% of these enterprises. File server virtualization is the
system virtualization takes fourth spot, with 60% of enterprises. most popular technology,
Application virtualization comes in fifth with 59%. with 80% having deployed
it in at least some of
their environment.

H o w m u ch o f y o u r e n v iro n m e n t is u sin g th e
fo llo w in g v irtu a liza tio n te ch n o lo g ie s ?
File S ys tem 5% 14% 12% 30% 21% 18%
Netw ork 4% 16% 10% 24% 22% 24%
S torage 5% 24% 13% 25% 18% 16%
D es ktop 4% 13% 6% 24% 29% 25%
S tream ing 3% 11% 9% 20% 20% 37%
Applic ation 5% 16% 9% 29% 20% 21%
OS 5% 19% 12% 35% 19% 10%
S erver 6% 22% 20% 31% 13% 7%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
% or total re sponde nts
All Mos t Half S om e Few None
Breaking this down in a more granular fashion gives a much more

accurate, if somewhat more difficult description of virtualization
technology deployments. In this measure, storage virtualization Very few enterprises have
is deployed in most of the environment for 29% of enterprises,
followed by server virtualization (28%), OS virtualization (24%), deployed any virtualization
and application virtualization (21%). Streaming is consistently low technology in their entire
in all penetration levels. Very few enterprises have deployed any environment – even server
virtualization technology in their entire environment – even server
virtualization is deployed
virtualization is deployed across the entire environment for only
6% of enterprises. across the entire environment
for only 6% of enterprises.

W hich of the follow ing virtual netw ork technologies if any, are you utiliz ing?
Virtual LANs (VLANs ) 72%
NAT 55%
NIC team ing 49%
Virtual firew alling 31%
MAC Addres s C hange

Loc kdow n 19%
O ther 0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
While network virtualization is covered in more detail by EMA in other reports, network virtualization
is in some ways more complex, with more varied technologies, than other types of system virtualization.
It is therefore interesting to look specifically at the different types of network virtualization technology
that are in use in the enterprise. Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) are clearly most prominent, in
use at 72% of enterprises. Network Address Translation (NAT) is second most popular, deployed in
55% of enterprises, narrowly more popular than Network Interface Card (NIC) teaming at 49%. Less
popular are virtual firewalls (31%) and locking down MAC address changes (19%). Look for more
in-depth coverage of network virtualization in forthcoming EMA research reports

Virtualization Vendors and Products
Server Virtualization
W hich of the follow ing S erver V irtualiz ation products,

if any, do you have or are you planning to implement?
VMw are E S X/S erver 82%

Mic ros oft Hyper-V 32%
C itrix XenS erver 21%
O pen S ourc e Xen 16%
HP nP ar/vP ar/Integrity 14%
S un xVM 13%
IB M z S eries 13%
IB M P O W E R 12%
Linux K VM 11%
O rac le VM 11%
VS E 10%
Virtual Iron 8%
O ther 0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
In the server virtualization space, it is little surprise to see VMware dominating the market. Over 80%
of enterprises that are implementing, or have already implemented virtualization, are doing so with
VMware’s server virtualization products. With mature technology, strong additional capabilities for
disaster recovery and high availability, and a significant head start on its many competitors, VMware
ESX and VMware Server are very popular products, for very good reason.
More surprising is the 32% of all enterprises that nominated
Microsoft Hyper-V, despite it being available only as a beta ver-
sion at the time of this research. Hyper-V still some months away Microsoft Hyper-V is still
from general availability, yet it is already the second most preferred some months away from
server virtualization product. This bodes very well for Microsoft general availability, yet
– and very badly for VMware. If this take-up is any indication,
Microsoft will indeed storm onto the server virtualization front it is already the second
in the coming 12-24 months. This is no doubt substantially due to most preferred server
the dominance of the Windows Server platform – as enterprises virtualization product.
upgrade from earlier versions of Windows Server, the ability to
deploy an integrated, out-of-the-box, server virtualization plat-
form at a much lower unit cost, is going to be both easy and popular. Microsoft also provides a broad
ecosystem of virtualization technologies (including server, OS, application, and desktop virtualization)
and management technologies (in particular the integrated Systems Center suite for configuration, pro-
visioning, virtual machine management, and more), further easing the burden of choice, particularly
in more homogeneous Microsoft-based environments. In any case, there is no doubt that erstwhile

market leader VMware will need some outstanding innovation, and both organic and inorganic growth,
if it wants to try to maintain its current dominance.
A number of open source Xen implementations are scattered through the results. These generally take
the basic Xen hypervisor, and add management capabilities and services. Of these, Citrix XenServer
(the result of the September 2007 acquisition by Citrix of XenSource) takes the lead, with 21% of
all respondents – a very healthy number given the relative maturity of the Xen platform. Open source
Xen (i.e. the basic implementation of the Xen hypervisor included in open source Linux distributions)
was much higher than might be expected at 16%. Other Xen-based products, which tend to be aimed
at specific sub-markets (e.g., Solaris users, Oracle Db users, SMBs, etc.), include Sun xVM (13%),
Oracle VM (11%), and Virtual Iron (8%). With many enterprises choosing to implement basic open
source Xen, this raises serious questions about the viability of those vendors’ open-proprietary mix.
Adjusting for individual enterprises that are deploying multiple
variants, 44% of all enterprises have or are deploying Xen in
some fashion – significantly above Microsoft, but still a distant Adjusting for individual
second. Linux KVM accounts for an additional 11%, which starts
to put open source server virtualization within striking range of
enterprises that are deploying
VMware’s lead. multiple variants, 44%
Among the other (essentially non-x86) virtualization products,
of all enterprises have or
HP’s virtualization platforms (nPars, vPars, and Integrity), with a are deploying Xen in some
maturity, scalability, and reliability that is typically much greater fashion – significantly
than any standard x86 implementations, leads with around 14% above Microsoft’s (yet to be
of all deployments. (HP also rates 10% with its proprietary VSE
operating environment). IBM’s workhorse zSeries (including z/ released) Hyper-V, but still a
OS and z/Linux, as well as early versions of z/Solaris) comes in distant second to VMware.
next, at 13%. IBM pSeries (POWER) UNIX virtualization rates a
further 12% of all enterprises
(Of course, evaluating and comparing markets and penetration for x86 and non-x86 products is a dif-
ficult task at best. Virtualization on an HP-UX, i5/OS, or especially zSeries, is a far different capability
than on x86. The sheer scale of compute power on such systems makes them completely different
from x86 products, and for the most part from each other, so they are almost impossible to compare
in any reasonable way.)
: For more information and a detailed analysis of the acquisition of XenSource by Citrix, see the EMA Impact Brief, Citrix Acquires
XenSource, http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/research/ema_product.php?product=4000_1424

Operating System Virtualization
W hich of the follow ing O perating S ystem (O S ) V irtualiz ation products,

if any do you have or are you planning to implement?
VMw are AC E , Fus ion, or

W orks tation 69%
Mic ros oft Virtual P C , Virtual

S erver 48%
S un S olaris C ontainers 17%
P arallels Virtuoz z o, W orks tation 15%
HP S ec ure R es ourc e P artitions 9%
O pen S ourc e O penVZ 7%
Linux Jails 6%
O ther 0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
VMware is also a clear leader in the OS virtualization market, with 69% of all enterprises with
virtualization deploying its products (VMware ACE, VMware Fusion, or VMware Workstation).
However, it is nowhere near as dominant in OS virtualization as it is in server virtualization. Microsoft
(with its free Virtual PC and Virtual Server products) comes a relatively close second with 48% of
enterprises. The third-highest penetration for OS virtualization is Sun’s Solaris Containers, which comes
with Solaris at no additional cost. At 17% of all enterprises, it is the highest ranked OS virtualization
solution to run on a standard UNIX environment, ahead of HP’s Secure Resource Partitions. Parallels
(formerly SWsoft) Virtuozzo comes in with 15% of enterprises, with another free option, the open
source OpenVZ (upon which the Parallels Virtuozzo solution is built), being deployed or planned in
7% of enterprises. Another free OS virtualization option, Linux
Jails, comes in at the bottom with just 6%.
What is perhaps most surprising about these results is that OS VMware is also a clear leader
virtualization – of any brand – is as widely deployed as it is. It in the OS virtualization
is often disparaged in comparison to server virtualization, and market, with 69% of
considered (for no real reason) to be a lesser option that is not as
robust, or not suited for server workloads. Indeed, the need to run all enterprises with
a host OS can add to the base load put on the hardware, decreas- virtualization deploying
ing the number or combined workload of the guest virtual serv- its products. However, it is
ers that can be loaded onto each single physical system. However,
nowhere near as dominant
it can also have many advantages over server virtualization. The
Jails/Containers approach, for example, actually virtualizes fewer in OS virtualization as it
resources, so more of the common processing requirement is is in server virtualization.
shared, rather than being duplicated as it is in a server virtualization

deployment. For some workloads, this means that OS virtualization can actually load up more work-
loads onto a single physical system. It is also easier for most people to install OS virtualization onto
an existing platform for more casual use cases (as opposed to formal server migration projects), and
especially on individual desktops, than server virtualization. This is especially true in a test/dev lab,
where OS virtualization can enable even more rapid build-test-rebuild cycles than a more technology-
heavy server virtualization approach. Finally, it is widely available at no unit cost. In focal interviews
with enterprise users, EMA has found that even when considering the additional cost of a proprietary
host OS, free OS virtualization can result in annual cost savings in the realm of $20K in a small deploy-
ment (5 servers), and up to $300K in a larger deployment (100 servers), compared to a proprietary
server virtualization solution.
Application Virtualization
W hich of the follow ing Application V irtualiz ation products,

C itrix XenApp (C P S ) 45%
VMw are Thins tall 36%
Mic ros oft S oftGrid 31%
S ym antec (Altiris ) S VS 15%
AppS tream 7%
E ndeavors 3%
O ther 1%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
Citrix XenApp (formerly Citrix Presentation Services) is the clear

leader in application virtualization with a planned or current
deployment in 45% of enterprises. With a relatively long history, Citrix XenApp (formerly
a mature technology, and a strong management ecosystem, Citrix Citrix Presentation Services)
has long been and continues to be the deserved market leader. is the clear leader in
However, VMware, with its 2007 acquisition of application application virtualization
virtualization/isolation vendor Thinstall, has already jumped into with a planned or
second place with 36% of all enterprises. This is a phenomenal
take-up – similar to the extraordinary leap of Microsoft Hyper-V current deployment in
in the server virtualization space. This surpasses rival Microsoft 45% of enterprises.
whose SoftGrid product (acquired by Microsoft in 2006), gar-
: For more information and a detailed analysis of the VMware acquisition of Thinstall, see EMA Impact Brief, VMware Announces
Acquisition of Thinstall - http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/research/ema_product.php?product=4000_1530
: For more information and a detailed analysis of the Microsoft acquisition of Softricity, see EMA Impact Brief, Microsoft Acquires Softricity,
Outlines Virtualization Vision - http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/research/ema_product.php?product=4000_1132

nered a respectable, but trailing, 31% of all enterprises. Altiris SVS (part of Symantec since early 2007)
comes in substantially below any of the three leading products with only 15% of enterprises.
Leading the niche vendors is AppStream with 7% – although this does not account for implementa-
tions as part of OEM solutions such as (among others) Altiris, just as VMware’s Thinstall is OEM’d
to Altiris rival, LANDesk. Endeavors (formerly Stream Theory) rounds out the main application
virtualization vendors with 3% of surveyed enterprises using or planning to deploy their product.
Desktop Virtualization
W hich of the follow ing D esktop V irtualiz ation products,

VMw are VD I 58%
Mic ros oft Term inal S ervic es 55%
C itrix XenApp (C P S ) 42%
C itrix XenD es ktop 18%
Q ues t P rovis ion Netw orks 10%
Mic ros oft K idaro D es ktop 4%
S IMtone (XD S ) 3%
O ther 1%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Taken as a single vendor, Citrix leads this category with 60% of

all respondents having deployed or planning a Citrix desktop
Taken as a single vendor,
virtualization implementation, including XenApp (42%), and
XenDesktop (18%). Microsoft is second with 59% of respon- Citrix leads this category
dents, including those selecting Terminal Services (55%) and with 60% of all respondents.
Kidaro (4%), which Microsoft acquired in early 2008. VMware Microsoft is second with
is a very close third with 58%. All three are separated by less than
the margin of error for this research, making this the tightest
59%, and VMware is a
virtualization market by far. EMA expects this to continue to be very close third with 58%.
the most tightly contested market in virtualization through the All three are separated by
next 12-24 months. less than the margin of
Rounding out this technology with 10% is relative newcomer error for this research.
Provision Networks, acquired in November 2007 by manage-
: For more information and a detailed analysis of the Symantec acquisition of Altiris, see EMA Impact Brief, Symantec Consolidates Its
Management Story with Acquisition of Altiris - http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/research/ema_product.php?product=4000_1261
: N.B. As at April 2008, Symantec had entered into (but not yet closed) a definitive agreement to acquire AppStream, giving Symantec a
combined 22% market share - still only enough for fourth spot in this space.
: For more information and a detailed analysis of the Microsoft acquisition of Kidaro, see EMA Impact Brief, Microsoft Acquires Kidaro
- http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/research/ema_product.php?product=4000_1575

ment software vendor Quest; and SIMtone (formerly XDS) with 3% – within the margin of error
for this study.
It is hard to compare the two leading products – VMware VDI and Microsoft Terminal Services – as
their use cases are remarkably different (a common problem in virtualization in general). VDI is aimed
squarely at end users, while Terminal Services is a much more technical implementation; as a result,
VDI gains its market share mainly from end-user desktop deployments, while Terminal Services popu-
larity is more likely to be as a result of widespread use by server administrators.
Citrix XenApp is also unique because this single product (albeit in different configurations) participates
in both the desktop and application virtualization markets. The position of XenDesktop is remarkable
because – like Microsoft Hyper-V – it was still only in beta release at the time of this research. EMA
therefore expects this to spike dramatically upwards as the product becomes generally available.
Grid/Cluster Computing
W hich of the follow ing grid/cluster products, if any,

do you have or are you planning to implement?
Mic ros oft C lus ter S erver 53%
Linux S erver C lus tering 21%
O rac le R AC 19%
HP S ervic eGuard 15%
S ym antec Veritas C lus ters 15%
S un (C lus ter, S unFire Grid) 14%
IB M HAC MP 11%
O ther 2%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Microsoft Windows Cluster Server dominates grid and cluster deployments with 53% of respondents
either using or planning a Cluster Server deployment. Well behind are alternative solutions including
the generic Linux Server Clustering with 21%, and Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) with
18%. Microsoft has easily twice the penetration into virtualized enterprises as either solution. This
is understandable, as both are more aligned with niche requirements – Linux has a much smaller
server market share than Windows; Oracle RAC is a specific solution targeted at Oracle database and
application users.
Leading the non-Windows category for standalone grid and cluster is HP’s ServiceGuard with 15% of
respondents. It is somewhat surprising that this (and other UNIX solutions like Sun Cluster or SunFire
Grid, at 14% of respondents, and IBM’s HACMP with 11%) is not more popular. These offerings
provide excellent high availability and manageability for mission critical applications, on a variety of

hardware. The low market share is most likely to be a simple reflection of the lower market share of
Linux and UNIX. HP ServiceGuard and IBM HACMP, for example, support both, while Sun Cluster
supports just Solaris – but none support Microsoft Windows.
Overall Vendor Penetration
W hich of the follow ing vendors/products, if any, do you have or are you planning to
implement (all technologies)?
VMw are 89%
Mic ros oft 81%
C itrix 60%
HP 26%
S ym antec 26%
O rac le 26%
IB M 21%
S un 19%
P arallels 15%
Q ues t 10%
Virtual Iron 8%
AppS tream 7%
S IMtone 3%
E ndeavors 3%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
When looking at overall results for individual vendors (a category that, of course, excludes the many
free and open source alternatives such as Linux-based Xen, Linux KVM, OpenVZ, etc.), VMware is the
overall leader in virtualization, with current or planned deployments in 89% of all respondents. However,
it is under a more serious threat than ever before, with Microsoft
hot on its heels at 81%, and Citrix well within reach at 60%.
Other vendors trail well behind – including HP, Symantec, and VMware is the overall
Oracle (all with 26%), IBM (21%), Sun (19%), Parallels (15%), leader in virtualization,
and Quest/Provision Networks (10%). Considering the smaller with current or planned
markets in which these vendors operate, and the limited num-
ber of products they provide, compared to the broad swathe of deployments in 89% of
virtualization technologies offered by the three leaders, this is a all respondents. However,
particularly good showing for many of these vendors. it is under a more serious
From an equal starting point, VMware would appear to have a threat than ever before,
difficult lead to catch. However, while VMware has offered a with Microsoft hot on its
significant stable of mature products for some time, Microsoft
heels at 81%, and Citrix
well within reach at 60%.

is just starting this race, and in the single most popular market segment, server virtualization, does
not even have a generally available product. Similarly, in VMware’s strongest areas of server and OS
virtualization, Citrix has only been in this space for less than six months at the time of this study, and
its latest desktop virtualization solution is not yet generally available.
There is certainly room for VMware to solidify its dominance, and even add technologies (like grid/
cluster) to its virtualization portfolio. However, it is clearly in a defending position, and against par-
ticularly aggressive attacks from Microsoft in particular, EMA expects VMware to lose ground in this
extremely competitive landscape.
The Virtualization Complexity Triple-Threat

When looking across each of the three most important layers of virtualization complexity – platforms,
technologies, and vendors – a real problem rapidly becomes apparent.
Total number of different virtualiz ation platforms

30%
27%
25% 23%
21%
20%
15% 14%
10%
8%
5%
3%
0%
1 2 3 4 5 6
Across all respondents, it can be seen that a complex, heteroge-

neous virtualization platform deployment is the norm. While 21%
of enterprises have deployed or are deploying virtualization on a 79% of all enterprises are
single operating platform – mostly Windows – the remaining 79% deploying on a heterogeneous
are deploying on a heterogeneous platform base. Indeed, around platform base; half of all
half of all enterprises are deploying virtualization on three plat-
enterprises are deploying
forms or more.
virtualization on three
platforms or more.

N umber of V irtualiz ation Technologies (Total) per E nterprise
14%
13% 13%
12% 11%
11%
10% 10%
8%
% of Respondents
8%
6%
6%
4%
2%
0%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
N umbe r of T e chnologie s
A similar – but even more complex – pattern arises when looking

at the different virtualization technologies (server, OS, application,
storage, etc.) that are in use at any given enterprise. Only 6% of all Over 90% of all enterprises
enterprises are currently using just a single virtualization technol- are using a mix of
ogy in at least some of their environment. By contrast, over 90% virtualization technologies
of all enterprises are using a mix of virtualization technologies
in their enterprise today, and almost 50% are using four or more
in their enterprise today,
different virtualization technologies. This measure in particular is and almost 50% are using
not accounting for planned deployments, but rather only what is four or more different
reported in use today. virtualization technologies.

N umber of V irtualiz ation V endors (Total) per E nterprise
25% 24%
20%
20% 18%
15%
% Of Respondents
12%
10%
7% 7%
5% 4%
3% 2%
2%
0%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
N umbe r of Ve ndors
A similarly complex environment becomes apparent when looking at the various virtualization ven-
dors in the average enterprise. On average, each enterprise has four different vendors supplying
virtualization technology. Only 7% of all enterprises have just a single supplier for their virtualization
technologies. Again, over 90% of all enterprises have multiple vendors. Almost 50% have four or
more virtualization vendors.
N umber of V irtualiz ation P latforms, Technologies,

And V endors (Total) per E nterprise
12%
11%
10% 10% 9%
8%
8%
7%
% of Respondents
6%
6% 6%
6%
5%
5%
4% 4% 4%
4%
2% 2%
2% 2%
1%
1%
0%
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
T otal numbe r of P latforms, T e chnologie s, and Ve ndors
When you put together these three layers of complexity – across platform, technology, and vendor
– you get an even more sobering picture. On average, each enterprise has 11 different platforms,
technologies, and vendors to deal with in their virtualization environment alone. Only 2% of all enter-
prises are dealing with a simple, homogeneous virtualization environment comprised of one platform,

one technology, and one vendor. By far most enterprises (83%) On average, each enterprise
are dealing with on average at least two of each. Over half of all
enterprises (57%) are dealing with 10 or more platforms, tech-
has 11 different platforms,
nologies, and vendors. Almost 20% are dealing with 15 or more. technologies, and vendors
EMA research into Data Center Automation and other systems
to deal with in their
management disciplines has clearly shown that complexity, ineffi- virtualization environment
cient use of resources, and the cost of IT management are serious alone. Only 2% have just
issues for IT managers and staff alike. In that research, the needs one of each; almost 20% are
cited most often among the top three priorities, (with the percent-
age of enterprises considering them a top three issue) were: dealing with 15 or more.
• F
reeing up resources for strategic projects instead of
firefighting (43%)
• Reducing cost of manual operations and infrastructure management (41%)
• Reducing complexity of operations and infrastructure management (35%)
Without taking active steps to address the multiple layers of complexity, virtualization will confound
these goals, as it makes the IT environment more complex and harder to manage, requiring more
people for routine operations, and increasing the cost of management. Processes and technologies
that work to make the complexity of virtualization more manageable are therefore critical. This makes
virtualization management the most important differentiator in this space – for vendors and enter-
prises alike.
: For a comprehensive analysis of Data Center Automation, including in-depth research data and analysis, see the EMA Research Report
Data Center Automation: Delivering Fast, Efficient, and Reliable IT Services - http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/research/ema_product.
php?product=5000_1471

Case Study – Meeting Virtualization Audits with
Tripwire Enterprise
Paul O’Neill is the Information Security Engineer for Edfinancial Services, a student loan service
provider with operations in 5 states, over 600 employees, and around 1.5 million loan customers.
Edfinancial’s IT environment consists of 180 physical servers, running predominantly Microsoft
systems and applications including Windows Server, Exchange, IIS, Content Management Server,
Great Plains Dynamix, SQL Server, and BizTalk.
They first deployed virtualization around 3 years ago, initially running VMware GSX and ESX,
migrating to Microsoft Virtual Server around 18 months ago. They now have 70 virtual servers,
mostly for e-business test and development, but also for some production systems. A team of 14
is responsible for managing the IT environment, including two employees directly responsible for
the virtual environment.
“With a small operations staff and a large development staff,” says Paul, “it was a challenge to
identify changes on the network.” Developers making production changes “on the fly” would
break online applications. “We were looking at outages that directly affected our customers,” says
Paul, leading directly to lost revenue. With customer transactions valued at “about $2-3000 going
across the network a minute – that adds up if systems aren’t performing the way they are supposed
to.” Inadequate change controls were also damaging their ability to pass annual SAS 70 audits, as
their auditors “were looking for clear separation of duties” and better change reporting.
To deal with these issues, Edfinancial implemented Tripwire Enterprise – first in their physical
environment, then (as part of their standard build) in their virtual environment as well.
“It has been a huge time saving in validating that the changes the development group said they
were making, are the changes that are actually taking place,” says Paul. “Just the amount of time it
saves chasing down the cause of problems, it’s huge” in reducing and preventing downtime – with
the added benefit that “when problems happen, we can cover them with fewer people.”
It has also made their audits easier and more successful. “When our SAS 70 auditors come back, as
soon as they see we have Tripwire a lot of the questions go away,” says Paul. “When they ask for all
the change reports from specific dates, we can show them.” On just the first audit with Tripwire,
Paul says it “reduced the whole interview with auditors from 3 hours to around 45 minutes.” Now,
the auditors just e-mail Paul to ask him to send the Tripwire reports.
In a virtual environment, “all the benefits continue to apply,” says Paul. “The one big difference
with virtualization is that if there is a change made to the host environment, it can impact all the
guests. With Tripwire we know about it straight away. That is critical, because we aren’t wasting
time chasing down virtuals. We know if it is a physical server problem.”
For Edfinancial, Tripwire Enterprise has clearly paid off. It has delivered measurable cost savings,
improved productivity, and reduced downtime; and it has directly enabled them to meet their
rigorous audit requirements.

The State of Virtualization Management
Perceptions of Virtualization Management
EMA asked enterprises to rate which disciplines became easier, which stayed the same, and which
became harder in a virtual environment. Overall, a majority of enterprises rate all management disci-
plines as either easier or the same in a virtual environment. However, it is more informative to look
separately at those that are rated easier, and those that are rated harder. The percentages of all enter-
prises that rated each discipline as easier or harder are summarized below.
W hich of the follow ing management diciplines become

easier w ith virtualiz ation (select all that apply)?
D R /B C P 65%
O S P rovis ioning 64%
Availability Managem ent 50%
C apac ity Managem ent 49%
IT C os t Managem ent 49%
Applic ation P rovis ioning 43%
C onfiguration Managem ent 42%
S LM 37%
S oftw are P atc hing 33%
S oftw are Updates 33%
S oftw are C ontrol/D is tribution 32%
C hange Managem ent 29%
P roblem Managem ent 25%
S ec urity Adm inis tration 24%
Inc ident Managem ent 24%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Not surprisingly, the disciplines that become easier match up reasonably well with the virtualization
drivers and outcomes. For example, 65% of enterprises consider that Disaster Recovery and Business
Continuity Planning (DR/BCP) becomes easier in a virtual environment. With sophisticated manage-
ment facilities built into (or available as add-ons to) virtualization for live migration, high availability,
data migration, and more, this is a solid outcome, and certainly
likely to become easier. Similarly, OS provisioning – seen by 64%
of enterprises as easier – is facilitated by the ease of deploy- Overall, a majority
ment of pre-built virtual images, and the hardware independence
that the virtualization layer provides. Difficulties in availability
of enterprises rate all
and capacity can be quickly addressed, at least after the fact, by management disciplines as
rapid provisioning of more resources, or through live migration either easier or the same in
a virtual environment.

onto a bigger, faster server. As such, these disciplines are also rated most often as easier in a virtual
environment, by 50% and 49% of respondents respectively. Rounding out the top five is IT Cost
Management, rated by 49% of enterprises as becoming easier under virtualization. This is substan-
tially due to virtualization’s ability to maximize server and storage utilization, to replace thick desktop
PCs with thin clients, to roll out new products and services – and specifically the applications and
systems they depend on – quickly and easily, often without buying new hardware.
W hich of the follow ing management diciplines become

harder w ith virtualiz ation (select all that apply)?
D R /B C P 8%
S LM 7%
0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18%
Looking at those that are rated harder by some enterprises is particularly sobering, and potentially of
more value to enterprises embarking in virtualization for the first time.
Security is, to many, the number one issue in virtualization man-
agement, and of all the management disciplines is the one that
most enterprises – albeit only 16% – believe gets harder under Security is the number
virtualization. The lack of visibility, dynamic nature of VMs, the one issue in virtualization
lack of process management, and the added possibilities for attack management, and of all
are all significant issues affecting the management of virtualization
security. As with security in a physical environment, however, bet- the management disciplines
ter tools are not the whole answer. Enterprises need to seek out is the one that most
a three-pillared approach to resolving these issues that includes enterprises believe gets harder
people, process, and technology. under virtualization.

Problem and incident management is another critical issue in virtualization, and respectively the sec-
ond highest percentage (15%) and fifth highest percentage (13%) of enterprises respectively rated
these disciplines as getting harder under virtualization. Simply identifying and reacting to incidents can
become much more difficult. The abstraction of compute resources in the virtual environment tends
to obfuscate potentially serious service issues, making it difficult not just to resolve the underlying
cause of problems, but also to identify the incidents when they occur. The multiple layers of complex-
ity, across multiple hosts, guests, vendors, platforms, and technologies, introduce a myriad of additional
difficulties. More skills are needed, more time, more data, and more technologies. Enterprises should
look for technologies designed to work across the multiple layers of complexity, which proactively
measure, monitor, alert, isolate, diagnose, and report on problems automatically, based on customiz-
able thresholds and policies, to reduce the pain of problem management in a virtual environment.
Capacity management, one of the top disciplines that becomes easier, is also one of the top disciplines
that becomes harder in a virtual environment. This apparent contradiction is almost certainly a dif-
ference only of approach, and of maturity. Many enterprises solve capacity management problems
by waiting until they happen, and then allocating more (and more, and more) resources until they go
away. However, especially in a larger or more mature environment, this is no solution at all. It addresses
merely the symptoms, not the cause, and works directly against key drivers to consolidate and improve
efficiency. Enterprises looking for a true capacity management solution in a virtual environment need
to look for sophisticated tools that understand resource allocation and usage across the physical and
virtual ecosystems, and across the full range of the virtual environment (hosts, guests, hypervisors,
clients, storage systems, network components, etc.). Using this sophisticated understanding, enterprises
can predict capacity requirements and get ahead of potential problems, while still meeting the key goals
of their virtualization deployment.
Rounding out the top five disciplines that enterprises believe
become harder under virtualization is configuration management, An entire call center came to a
selected by 14% of enterprises as harder in a virtual environment. halt because an administrator
With the ability to randomly stand up a virtual image, with few accidentally started a rogue
of the necessary procedural stop points of a physical deployment
– server procurement, hardware installation, etc. – configuration virtual machine with a
management becomes much more critical in a virtual environment. duplicate DHCP server.
In focal interviews EMA has discussed situations where an entire
call center came to a halt because an administrator accidentally
started a rogue virtual machine with a duplicate DHCP server, causing IP collisions and other network
problems that stopped the entire call center from accessing critical applications. The ability to rapidly
deploy an unauthorized Active Directory server, or expose an unpatched virtual Web server to the
Internet, can lead to increased risk, governance and compliance failures, and major security breaches.
A significant part of the solution to such difficulties is in ensuring people understand and avoid these
potential problems, and in defining and applying processes to maintain appropriate configurations.
Configuration management solutions that work in real time to detect and remediate rogue VM deploy-
ment, as well as unpatched and otherwise out-of-policy virtual systems, are also critical to prevent such
productivity and security problems in a virtual environment.

Integrating Virtual and Physical Management
W hich of the follow ing best describes the management softw are that you are currently
using specifically in your virtual environment?
1% 9%
14%
Fully m anual, no m anagem ent tools
B undled virtualiz ation vendor tools

10%
Add-on virtualiz ation vendor tools
29%
S tandard phys ic al m anagem ent tools
P urpos e-built virtualiz ation tools
P urpos e-built phys ic al/virtual tools

17%
O ther
20%
EMA believes that a major factor in dealing with these management difficulties, and the broader prob-
lems of virtualization complexity, lies in integrated toolsets that effectively manage the physical and
virtual environment.
However, many enterprises do not seem to be taking this approach.
Almost 10% of all enterprises are using no virtualization manage- Almost 10% of all enterprises
ment tools at all. This fully manual approach, beyond a certain
(relatively small) scale, is completely unsustainable. EMA research are using no virtualization
shows convincingly that manual management leads to increased management tools at all.
rate of errors, downtime and availability issues, poor response to
requests, and higher staff costs.
Almost one third of all enterprises (29%) do not have any additional management tools for their
virtual environment, beyond the tools that came bundled with their virtualization technologies. An
additional 20% only use the additional tools available from their virtualization vendors. These tools
can be very good in limited use cases – for VM migration, virtual desktop deployment, cluster man-
agement, etc. However, they do not address a core part of the complexity of virtual environments
– the tendency to have multiple virtualization vendors. This approach ends up with as many tools as
there are vendors, and with 90% of all enterprises having multiple virtualization vendors, and 50%
having four or more, enterprises using this approach will end up with uncontrollable and non-inte-
grated virtual environments.
Only 10% use third-party tools designed for managing virtual environments. This is a good way to
handle the virtualization complexity triple-threat – the complexity of platforms, technologies, and
vendors – but it still does not handle the complexity of managing physical and virtual environments
together. As this research shows, in most enterprises the majority of the IT environment is still physi-
cal. Using separate tools for physical and virtual management can address many of the multiple layers
of virtualization complexity, but does nothing to simplify the entire IT ecosystem.

In the driver’s seat are the 14% of enterprises using management technologies designed to integrate the
management of both virtual and physical environments. These tools generally are capable of attacking
all the major layers of complexity by supporting multiple platforms, technologies, and vendors, across
both physical and virtual environments. This in turn frees up staff from tactical operations to engage in
strategic projects, reduces the costs of enterprise management, and provides the benefits of integration
across the environment. While such tools are rare – and to date at least remain far from comprehensive
– they are the only way to overcome the problems caused by virtualization complexity.
Integrating Virtualization Management with Enterprise IT Management
W hich of the follow ing descriptions apply to your

virtualiz ation management tools? S elect all that apply.
Manages both virtual hos ts and

gues ts 30%
Manages all virtualiz ation

vendors 26%
Manages both phys ic al and

virtual environm ents
25%

tec hnologies 22%
Integrates w ith s tandard E S M

tools
21%
Integrates w ith a B S M
fram ew ork 14%

platform s 19%
None of the above 21%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
The significant issue with specialized virtualization management tools is that they do not, for the most
part, integrate with the rest of the IT management stack. Only 25% of enterprises are using manage-
ment tools that are able to manage across both the physical and virtual environments. Even fewer tools
are specifically designed for both physical and virtual environments. Only 21% of management tools in
use are able to integrate effectively with other enterprise system management (ESM) tools. Enterprises
are left to manage their physical environment with one toolset, and their virtual environment with
another. In most cases, management tools do not even integrate with other virtualization management
tools, or even across layers of the virtualization stack. Only 30% of management tools in use can even
manage both virtual host and guest environments.
These disconnects can cause major problems – for example, simply triaging an availability or perfor-
mance issue becomes a major process. Administrators and managers must waste time trying to coordi-
nate and correlate data and analysis across physical and virtual people, processes, and technologies. As
if triage were not difficult enough, precious cycles are added to the downtime just trying to correlate

physical and virtual issues between multiple management tools. This disconnect and added complexity
will invariably lead to human errors, inefficiencies, increased risk, and other management problems.
When looking at the virtualization triple-threat, the outcomes are even bleaker. Only 19% of enter-
prises have management tools that can manage all of the virtualization platforms in use in these enter-
prises; only 22% can manage all of the virtualization technologies; and only 26% can manage all the
virtualization vendors. At best, less than one fifth of enterprises are able to address the virtualization
triple-threat through their current management tools.
This research also clearly shows that a very low number of man-
agement tools in use – only 14% – enable IT to focus on higher- Enterprises are left to manage
level objectives, and to align IT services with business objectives (a
process known as Business Service Management, of BSM). EMA
their physical environment
research has shown that this approach is very popular, as it provides with one toolset, and their
a key differentiator that allows companies to be more strategic, virtual environment with
more competitive, and more efficient, yet virtualization manage- another. In most cases,
ment tools are mostly unable to work within this paradigm.
management tools do not
Management tools in the virtualization space are significantly lack- even integrate with other
ing. While several management software vendors are producing
very good tools, they clearly need to do more. Enterprises need virtualization management
better integration, better manageability, and more comprehensive tools, or even across layers
toolsets if they are to adequately address the multiple layers of of the virtualization stack.
complexity in the virtual environment.

Case Study – Ensuring Virtualization Performance
with eG Innovations eG Monitor for VMware
James is a Senior Technical Engineer for a global consumer products company with around 5000
employees and a million independent sales agents delivering over $2 billion in sales worldwide.
With data centers in the US, UK, and Asia, they are running 25-30 VMware ESX servers, support-
ing around 400 virtual machines, running domain controllers, production Web servers, Microsoft
Project servers, Citrix licensing servers, antivirus servers, and virtual desktops. They have just 7
staff to manage all their IT infrastructure – hardware, operating systems, and applications – and
just 1 person to manage their virtual environment.
In 2003 they started to deploy VMware, and like many environments started with just the basic
VirtualCenter management toolset. However, James says, “VirtualCenter is not very detailed
– when you try to look at multiple VMs together, there’s no way to do that; if I want to look at 10
VMs together to see how they are performing, it doesn’t give me that kind of insight.”
James was spending hours every month on management reporting, “pulling data out of Virtual
Center, putting it into charts, making it look right – and I had to customize it every time there was
a little change.” Despite his effort, without accurate, real-time metrics, they were “flying blindly,”
deploying a maximum of 4 VMs per core regardless of actual utilization. “We were not saving
as much as we could,” says James, “because we needed that low ratio to be sure we maintained
performance and service levels.”
When they started to expand their virtualization deployment internationally, this rough methodol-
ogy was not reliable, scalable, or cost-effective – and it made senior global VPs very uncomfort-
able. James needed accurate capacity monitoring and planning, with real-time alerting, driven by
policy-based thresholds for specific metrics.
After a formal evaluation of eight different solutions, James selected the eG Monitor solution
from eG Innovations. In just 3 months, the results have already been just what James needed.
It provides the real-time monitoring, alerts, threshold triggered actions, and automatic problem
ticket generation that James was looking for. “Other solutions felt very limited by comparison,” he
says. They now have “better server-to-VM ratios that are based in reality, not just a ‘best guess’,”
allowing them to “load up multi-CPU systems with multiple virtual systems,” increasing hardware
utilization and cost savings. They spend less time on routine work, because VMs are now “easier
and faster to manage and administer,” says James. “I can spend less time to get the information
that I need. On a monthly basis, this will save me about 5-6 hours.” And with a “very nice report-
ing function – which was especially important to the management team,” global VPs get the
availability – and the reassurance – that they need.
Through better server utilization, improved resource efficiency, greater cost savings, and more
accurate metrics – not to mention saving almost a day of James’ time every month on report
generation alone, and the peace-of-mind it gives the worldwide VPs – the eG Innovations solution
has certainly delivered the results James needed.

The Human Factor
There are many technology issues – and also some viable technology solutions – when looking at the
problems of managing a virtual environment. However, many of the most significant problems are
actually human issues.
For example, as noted above, 43% of respondents believe that internal ‘political’ or cooperation
issues across IT and/or business areas are the greatest barriers to implementing or expanding their
virtualization deployment. Departments that will not give up their servers, IT organizations that cannot
work across silos, difficulty in determining and allocating costs, issues with ‘ownership’ of hardware or
software, are all significant human and political barriers.
Difficulty with resourcing is the other main area that comprises these human issues. Simply not having
(or being unable to spare) the required time and/or human resources required to learn, plan, and imple-
ment virtualization is a major issue for 40% of enterprises. Not having resources with appropriate
virtualization skills was a major concern for another 34% of enterprises.
This is further exemplified by the state of virtualization skills in these enterprises.
The Ongoing Virtualization Skills Crisis
D o you believe you have sufficient skills in your enterprise

today to manage your virtualiz ed systems?
4% 1%
21% 31%
Yes , definitely
Yes , probably
No, probably not
No, definitely not
D on’t know
43%
Only 31% of all enterprises believe that they definitely have sufficient skills in their environment
to manage their virtualization deployment. Moreover, of the 90% of enterprises surveyed that have
already implemented virtualization, or that are currently doing so, 58% of them could not say they
definitely had the skills they needed to manage the environment; and 20% of them said specifically
that they did not. Across all organizations, including that additional 10% that are planning an immedi-
ate implementation, that rises to one quarter of all organizations that are (or soon will be) unable to
adequately manage their virtual environment due to a lack of skills. It is little consolation that 43%
“probably” have the skills they need.

All of these organizations need to improve their skills, but will Of the 90% of enterprises
find it difficult to do. Virtualization skills are not exceedingly
common in the market, and where they are available are likely
surveyed that have already
to come at a premium. If skilled new hires can be lured away implemented virtualization,
from their current position, they stand a good chance of being or that are currently doing
lured away from their new one as well. Regardless, if enterprises so, 58% of them could
do recruit externally, they will spend significant time and effort
getting to know the details of the environment, and will for some not say they definitely had
time be unable to fully comprehend this abstract, complex, and the skills they needed to
in many ways hidden environment. Perhaps most importantly, manage the environment;
given the major political issues, they will not have the understand- and 20% of them said
ing of important people and organizational processes to resolve
those major internal ‘political’ or cooperation issues across IT specifically that they did not.
and/or business areas. For these reasons, EMA recommends
under-skilled organizations embark on intensive internal training,
with vendor and/or SI led training, recognized third-party training firms, and internal mentoring.
Additional resources to help address skill issues can also be found with product and technology user
groups, and in various online resources.
Segregation of Virtualization Management Teams
W hich of the follow ing functional area(s) is/are responsible for overall virtualiz ation
delivery and management?
S erver Adm inis tration 71%
O S Adm inis tration 37%
Netw ork O perations 37%
D ata C enter O perations 34%
S torage Managem ent 32%
D es ktop S upport 23%
Virtualiz ation S upport 21%
Applic ation D evelopm ent 17%
O ther 3%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
In contrast to management software, it is positive (and somewhat surprising) to see a concentration of

virtualization management within existing IT management teams. Specifically, only 21% of enterprises
have a separate virtualization management team. The existing server management group is by far the
most popular locus of responsibility for delivery and management of virtualization, being the core

management team for virtualization in 71% of all enterprises. This Only 21% of enterprises have
group is likely also responsible for physical server management,
which highlights two important outcomes. First, it is a very positive
a separate virtualization
sign that physical and virtual systems management are integrated management team. The
within a single team in most enterprises – this is a much more existing server management
efficient and effective way to manage the environment than having group is by far the most
a separate virtualization team, and EMA believes that this is a best
practice in virtualization management. Second, this makes it even popular locus of responsibility
more imperative that management software is similarly integrated. for delivery and management
The ability of the server administration team to manage these of virtualization.
environments efficiently, with minimal error, and with greatest
productivity, is greatly hampered if they are forced to use disparate
tools for different infrastructures. In addition, management costs are increased by having duplicate
people, processes, and/or technologies for what should be a single management requirement.
While the server administration team is clearly the main group responsible for virtualization manage-
ment, the Operating System administration team and the Network Operations team are both respon-
sible for management in 37% of enterprises, and the Data Center Operations team is responsible in
34% of enterprises. Significant in these numbers is that virtualization management does still span
multiple teams.
N umber of departments responsible for overall

virtualiz ation delivery and management per enterprise
35% 33%
30%
25%
23%
% Of Respondents
20% 19%
15%
10% 9%
6%
5%
5% 3%
3%
0%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
N umbe r of D e partme nts
As can be seen, many enterprises (33%) have only one department responsible for delivering and man-
aging their virtualization deployments. This centralization can certainly be beneficial to cost reduction,
efficiency, skill maintenance, and more. However, in the majority (67%) of enterprises, this responsibil-
ity is split among multiple teams, and over a quarter (26%) of all enterprises have four or more teams

responsible for virtualization management. If management In the majority (67%) of
tools and processes were more integrated, this might indi-
cate that virtualization is being managed in an integrated
enterprises, virtualization
and unobtrusive way, alongside other disciplines, and within management responsibility is
each appropriate ownership area (OS admin, Server Admin, split among multiple teams,
Network Ops, etc.). Unfortunately, as this research has and over a quarter (26%) of
shown, integration of management tools and processes
is still not the reality in a vast majority of enterprises, and all enterprises have four or
almost half of all enterprises are having significant prob- more teams responsible for
lems with cooperation across IT areas. This separation (and virtualization management.
duplication) of duties is therefore more likely to be a result
of silo-based IT management, and a lack of cooperation
across these different teams, despite using a common technology. This is an error-prone and inefficient
approach that further stretches the already very thin virtualization skills across multiple departments,
and as such may well cause significant difficulties. Certainly in more mature organizations, and as
management tools become more sophisticated and better integrated, it will be desirable to manage
virtualization infrastructure the same way we manage physical infrastructure. However, there is no
evidence that this is possible in any significant way with current technologies, so enterprises should be
very wary of separating virtualization management among multiple teams.

Case Study – Ensuring Virtualization Compliance
with Tripwire Enterprise
Paul is the Director of Information Security for a large financial services firm with several thou-
sand employees, and several million customers. Their IT environment of 400 UNIX systems
(Solaris and AIX), 600 Windows Servers, and a zSeries mainframe is managed by a total of around
340 employees, almost 200 of whom are involved in day-to-day operational management.
Their virtual environment consists of Sun Logical Domains (LDOMs), IBM Logical Partitions
(LPARS) on z/OS and AIX, Sun Solaris Containers, and VMware ESX servers. With such a
complex environment, Paul says, “Knowing exactly what our footprint is represents a challenge.”
Virtualization in particular removed many of the “helpful barriers” that prevented rogue changes
– like hardware provisioning, procurement, authorization, etc. As a result, rogue deployment of
critical infrastructure, like DHCP or Active Directory servers, has the potential to create techni-
cal problems, service issues, and outages that directly affect business users. These problems, if
realized, could also reduce business confidence in IT, raising the prospect, says Paul, of “having
‘shadow IT’, with [business] departments running critical applications on local desktops, and then
not getting mission-critical management and support.”
Paul needed what he described as a ‘visible ops’ approach, explaining, “If you don’t have a tool
to manage change over hundreds of VMs, you are creating huge problems.” As a company that
is continually growing, he also needed to start dealing with VM management in a more focused,
planned, and scalable way. Another major catalyst for them was their adoption of IT Infrastructure
Library (ITIL) best practices. “If we were to adopt ITIL and to treat our IT as a business service,
we needed to have a much higher level of control,” says Paul.
The company has used Tripwire Enterprise in their physical environment since 2003, so when
looking to solve these problems in their virtual environment, says Paul, “Tripwire just makes
sense.”
Even in such a complex environment, “it can give me visibility into what’s changed,” says Paul.
“We want ‘trust, but verify’ – and detective tools like Tripwire allow you to see what is really
occurring.” This flows directly through to audit and compliance. “It helps to enforce deployment
policies and procedures,” says Paul, without a large post-facto analysis effort. “You may think you
have a great change management process, but until you have a tool to confirm it, you can never
be sure.” And when the unexpected does happen, he says, “it gives me the insight to differentiate
between accidental problems caused by some ‘cowboy’, and real malicious behavior.” With a ser-
vice management focus driven by ITIL, Paul states, “Anything we can do to stabilize IT to support
the business lets us deliver better service.”
With Tripwire, Paul fully expects to achieve several important objectives in both virtual and physi-
cal environments, including configuration audit and compliance, higher availability, and the better
compliance with ITIL best practices that improve their service delivery.

From 2006 to 2008 – and Beyond
Increasing Penetration of Virtualization Technologies
In August 2006, EMA conducted a similar research study into virtualization, Virtualization: Exposing
the Intangible Enterprise10. This was one of the earliest empirical studies to look at actual enterprise use
of virtualization, including many of the same metrics that have been gathered in this report. This has
given EMA the unique opportunity to provide detailed, accurate, and data-driven insight into the long-
term attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes in the virtualization and virtualization management arenas.
In our 2006 research, EMA looked at the future of virtualization based on enterprises’ reported plans
to deploy various virtualization technologies in at least some of their environment within the coming
12-24 months11. In that report, EMA wrote:
Across the board, (the results show) a market that is increasing by approximately 26% on average. In percentage
terms, storage and file system virtualization will experience the highest growth rate, both increasing by over 30%,
followed by desktop (28%), application (24%), operating system (21%) and server virtualization (20%).
P ercentage of respondents reporting at least some of their enterprise has deployed the
follow ing technologies (2006 vs. 2008)
S erver 5 8%
80%
OS 5 0%
71%
Applic ation 4 2%
59%
3 0% 2006
S torage
67% 2008
D es ktop 2 6%
46%
File S ys tem 2 3%
60%
Netw ork
54%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
10: For the complete research report, Virtualization: Exposing the Intangible Enterprise, see http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/research/
ema_product.php?product=5000_1147
11: N.B.: These figures are relevant to this measurement only, and are not a sales prediction. They are not ascertained from vendor reports
of products sold, but rather from enterprise reports of actual deployments. This provides a prediction specifically for the number of
enterprises that will have at least some of each virtualization technology in their environment, but does not necessarily indicate the number
of virtualization products that will be sold.

Actual reported grow th 2006-2008
40%
37%
36%
35%
30%
25%
21%
20% 20%
20% 18%
15%
10%
5%
0%
S erver OS Applic ation S torage D es ktop File S ys tem
The latest EMA research has shown that these predictions were remarkably accurate. Comparing the
percentage of each enterprise reporting at least some virtualization technology in 2006, with the per-
centage of enterprises with the same level of virtualization in 2008, enterprises have reported an
actual overall growth rate (i.e., the difference between percentages
from 2006 to 2008) across all technologies of 26% – exactly as
EMA predicted in 2006. Similarly, server virtualization has grown Enterprises have reported an
by 20%, and OS virtualization has grown by 21%, again match-
ing 2006 EMA predictions exactly. Storage virtualization and file
actual overall growth rate
system virtualization also grew as predicted at over 30% – spe- from 2006 to 2008 across all
cifically, at 36% and 37% respectively. Desktop and application technologies of 26% – exactly
virtualization both grew marginally more slowly than predicted, at as EMA predicted in 2006.
20% and 18% respectively. Figures for network virtualization were
not collected in the 2006 research.
In how much of your environment do you plan

to deploy the follow ing virtualiz ation technologies?
S erver 12% 36% 19% 23% 6% 3%
OS 8% 24% 17% 30% 14% 8%
A pplic ation 8% 21% 15% 28% 17% 11% A ll

M o st
S treaming 6% 12% 15% 28% 20% 18%
Ha lf
S ome
D esktop 8% 16% 14% 32% 18% 11%
Few
S torage 12% 27% 14% 28% 12% 7% No ne
Network 7% 19% 13% 29% 16% 15%
File S y stem 10% 20% 14% 31% 15% 10%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
% o r to ta l re s p o n d e n ts

Looking in detail at how enterprises with virtualization expect to
expand their deployments in future, here again we see evidence Through 2010, no
of irrational exuberance tempered with reality. Contrary to some virtualization technology
external (notably vendor-driven) predictions, most environments
will not be completely virtual, at least through 2010, and prob-
will even be the dominant
ably well beyond. In fact, the reality revealed by actual enterprise architecture. Physical
plans is that through 2010, no virtualization technology will even systems will continue to
be the dominant architecture. In fact, only 12% of enterprises dominate most environments
expect to deploy server virtualization for all of their environ-
ment; and only 8% expect to deploy OS virtualization, applica- for the near future.
tion virtualization, or desktop virtualization for their entire envi-
ronment. Even looking at enterprises that expect just half of
their environment to be virtualized, penetration will be far from complete. Just over a third (36%) of
all respondents expect to deploy server virtualization for half of their environment, less than a quarter
(24%) expect to deploy OS virtualization for half of their environment; 21% expect to deploy applica-
tion virtualization for half of their environment; and only 16% expect to deploy desktop virtualization
for half of their environment.
Asking how many enterprises will deploy virtualization is not the same as asking how much virtualization
each enterprise will deploy. Clearly, the overall number of enterprises deploying virtualization will be
significant, but just as clearly virtualization will not be dominant in most enterprises. Purely physical
systems will continue not only to exist, but indeed to dominate most enterprise environments for the
near future at least, and likely for some time to come. This reinforces the need for management solu-
tions and skills that handle both physical and virtual systems, at least for the foreseeable future.
This does not, of course, predict overall market (i.e. product sales) growth - the qualified respondents
in this research are primarily already involved with virtualization, making this an unsuitable sample for
broader market predictions. Nor does it predict the number of enterprises that will ‘dip their toes’ into
virtualization in some limited ways - previous EMA research has shown this will be as high as 96% of
all enterprises. However, based on the growth rates shown to date, the deployment predictions from
surveyed enterprises, and the percentage of respondents planning an initial virtualization deployment
in the coming 12 months, EMA estimates the virtualization market to grow by around 20% on average
for all virtualization technologies through the next 12-24 months, with the strongest growth coming
from desktop and application virtualization.
A Warning about Growth for End-User Facing Virtualization Technologies
Especially in light of enterprise expectations for desktop virtualization, it is important to note that
while enterprises in 2006 expected an aggressive uptake of both desktop and application virtualization,
both actually grew more slowly than expected. The two technologies that failed to meet growth expec-
tation are the two technologies that most directly affect end users. Most virtualization technologies
(server, OS, storage, etc.) tend to be deployed in data center environments, handled by competent
technicians, with little or no direct exposure to end users. Desktop and application virtualization, by
contrast, directly affect non-technical end users, and often require a change in work processes, even if
only in minor ways.

This implies that while enterprises find it relatively easy to deploy virtualization technologies focused
on the data center, they are finding it harder than expected to deploy virtualization technologies that
are directly exposed to end users. Streaming and other virtual application deployment technologies are
certainly getting better, more sophisticated desktop virtualization technologies are making more ‘nor-
mal’ operations (listening to music, using varied peripherals, etc.) possible, and networking technologies
are reducing the more obvious effects of long-distance computing. So virtualization is becoming less
intrusive from the end user perspective. However, both desktop and application virtualization – and
the infrastructures that surround and enable them – still require some intrinsic changes before they are
truly transparent to end users.
Until these changes happen, EMA expects enterprises to continue
to have some difficulties exposing virtualization to end users,
and to continue to over-estimate their plans for these end-user While enterprises find it
facing virtualization technologies. EMA believes that this trend relatively easy to deploy
will likely continue, because the fundamental issues created by
virtualization technologies
exposing virtualization to end users are not being addressed in
substantial ways. Predictions for the growth of both desktop and focused on the data
application virtualization should therefore be tempered by these center, they are finding
expected, but for the most part unrealized, difficulties. it harder than expected
Therefore enterprises need to be very careful in the ways they to deploy virtualization
approach such technologies. IT needs to deal with thorny political technologies that are directly
issues, and work closely with end users. IT needs to deliver what
the business needs, and not only what they need. Specific recom- exposed to end users.
mendations to improve the chance of successfully deploying end-
user facing virtualization technologies include:
• A
ccommodate user differences – avoid a ‘lowest common denominator’ approach; instead think
about specific desktop and application components that should be remote, what should be local,
which types of users need which types of virtualization, and evaluate overall service delivery to
end users in terms of business needs.
• D
eploy compatible environments – test for incompatibilities between virtualization and both
hardware and software; make sure to evaluate and test candidate applications, especially those
that rely on local hardware – because not all applications will support virtualization, technically
or commercially.
• E
nsure network compatibility – do not deploy network-dependent virtualization technologies
(remote desktop virtualization, application streaming, etc.) indiscriminately across low-bandwidth
or unstable networks. Test connectivity so you can avoid unsuitable networks and/or use WAN
optimization technology where appropriate to maximize network resources.
• M
aintain server availability – sharing a single server to deliver multiple virtual desktops or
applications increases reliance on that server. Make sure to deploy high availability technologies
and have a DR plan (which may involve server virtualization) to ensure uptime and availability
of shared resources.

• M
anage human issues – politics and ignorance can raise powerful roadblocks, so make sure
to educate end users and their managers, set reasonable and achievable expectations, and
establish SLAs to ensure priorities and service availability. Remember to ensure that IT teams
are appropriately trained to support end users with their virtualization issues, and (needless to
say) strive to meet and exceed SLAs to establish and maintain trust.
Changing Virtualization Platforms
O n w hat operating systems or platforms are you using or planning to use virtualiz ation
technology (2006 vs 2008)?
W indow s 96%
89%
Linux (all) 46%

38%
S torage D evic es 31%

34%
2006
2008
UNIX 23%
67%
z /O S 4%
7%
O ther 4%
0%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120%
It is interesting to see Windows slip back a little as a virtualization platform. In 2006, 96% of all
enterprises were using Windows in their virtualization environment; in 2008, that dropped to 89%
– within just two percentage points of the margin of error for both studies. Linux has also dropped,
moving down from 46% of deployments in 2006, to 38% in 2008. Storage platforms as a locus for
virtualization have grown – from 31% to 34% – as has mainframe z/OS – from 4% to 7% (which again
is difficult to compare to other platforms, given that nearly doubling mainframe compute power is not
unlike deploying hundreds or even thousands of additional x86 servers).
The growth of UNIX as a virtualization platform from 23% of enterprises in 2006 to 67% in 2008
is extraordinary – and unlikely. Given than EMA Data Center Automation research has shown that
on average, enterprise plans for UNIX deployment are essentially
stalled, and even declining, an increase in the percentage of enter-
prises deploying UNIX as a virtualization platform is difficult to The growth of UNIX as a
accept on face value. It is possible that respondents are simply
better educated on the broader platform choices for virtualization
virtualization platform from
today than in 2006, and so understand that UNIX is a virtualized 23% of enterprises in 2006 to
operating system, where perhaps they did not fully understand this 67% in 2008 is extraordinary
two years ago. It may also be that additional education has enlight- … and unlikely.
ened enterprises to the possibilities of UNIX-based virtualization,

such as HP Secure Resource Partitions or Solaris Containers, and to the availability of additional facili-
ties for virtualizing in and on UNIX, such as VMware support for x86 Solaris, or IBM’s new PowerVM.
It may be that a need to reduce expenditure on UNIX hardware (which would account for the sig-
nificant drop in UNIX deployment plans EMA has seen) is resulting in an increasing virtualization
of UNIX operating systems on other commodity (x86) hardware. Nevertheless, this result does seem
anomalous in the context of otherwise shrinking UNIX deployments.
Changing Virtualization Workloads
W hat types of w orkloads have you deployed

virtualiz ation technology for 2006 vs 2008)?

79%

74%

51%

50%
2006
D ata/S torage Managem ent 21% 2008
S ys tem s 47%

47%
45%
P roduc tion Middlew are 26%
S ys tem s 41%
O ther 12%
1%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Average grow th rate for virtualiz ation w orkloads 2006-2008
D ata/S torage Managem ent S ys tem s 120%
P roduc tion Middlew are S ys tem s 58%
0% 100% 200% 300% 400% 500% 600% 700% 800%

Across the board, as virtualization deployments have increased, current and planned deployments for
all significant workloads have also increased. Test and development environments are still growing
– from 74% of all enterprises in 2006 to 79% in 2008 – but are not the largest growth workload for
virtualization. That honor belongs to end-user desktops, which grew from just 5% of all enterprises in
2006, to 45% of enterprises in 2008. It is important to note that this does not reflect the penetration
level (all, some, most, etc.) within the average enterprise for desktop virtualization – as can be seen
elsewhere in this report, that is a much different outcome. However, it does show a dramatic increase
in the number of enterprises that are at least trying out virtualization for or on end-user desktops.
Other significant growth areas include data and storage manage-
ment systems, more than doubling from 21% in 2006 to 47% in
2008, and of course disaster recovery workloads – a mainstay
of virtualization and a key driver for virtualization deployments Across the board, as
– increasing from 29% in 2006 to 51% in 2008. The typical three- virtualization deployments
tier production stack of application, database, and Web server also have increased, deployments
grew, although not uniformly. Virtualization for production appli-
for all significant workloads
cations grew from 64% to 74% of enterprises; virtualization of
production database servers grew from 30% to 50%. Virtualization have also increased.
of production Web servers stayed static, within a percentage point
of 47% in both 2006 and 2008.
A key outcome here is that deployment of virtualization for many different production workloads just
keeps growing. In 2006, EMA asserted that virtualization was ready for prime time (as if there was any
doubt). In 2008, the constant rise of virtualization for production workloads – including the typical
three-tier production stack, as well as middleware, DR, and end-user desktops – continues to prove that
to be true. This trend will no doubt continue.
There is no reason to believe that similar growth rates will not be achieved though 2010, and even
beyond. All forms of virtualization are still growing, and fewer and fewer workloads will not run in a
virtual environment. There is even growing acceptance of solutions for virtualizing traditionally more
‘difficult’ workloads – such as databases or e-mail servers, which tend to saturate resources like CPU
and network interfaces. EMA therefore expects to see these workload growth rates continue, and even
strengthen, through 2010.

Changing Virtualization Drivers
P lease rate the importance of each of the follow ing drivers in your decision to implement
virtualiz ation (O nly 'C ritical' drivers show n)
R educ e s oftw are c os ts 35%

37%

38%
Im prove s ec urity and c ontrol 50%

41%
Meet S LAs 48% 2006

44%
2008
Low er adm in/m gm t c os ts 57%
53%

59%
E nable D R /B C P 72%
60%

62%
R educ e dow ntim e 65%

62%

69%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
The reasons for deploying virtualization have changed somewhat since 2006, but not substantially.
Certainly there has been a lot of coverage in IT journals and from vendors (and from some ana-
lysts) describing virtualization as, rather shortsightedly, “a consolidation technology.” Some defini-
tions even describe virtualization as “running multiple operating systems on a single server,” reducing
virtualization to one technology, one use case, and one outcome.
Key drivers have shifted marginally from some strategic benefits – such as one of the leading drivers in
2006, increased agility and flexibility, which 68% of enterprises previously rated as critical, compared to
59% in 2008 – toward some more immediate project-based drivers like server consolidation, improved
hardware utilization, and reduced hardware costs.
Nevertheless, while the places have changed, the differences are
mostly relatively small. Enabling DR and BCP is among the big- Key drivers have shifted
gest movers, dropping as a critical driver for 72% of enterprises marginally from some
in 2006, to just 60% in 2008. Another relatively big change was
in the desire to rationalize or regain floor space. In 2006, 38% strategic benefits toward some
of enterprises considered that a critical driver; in 2008, only 21% more immediate project-
are expecting this outcome. It seems that many enterprises have based drivers like server
realized virtualization can be part of a rationalization project, but
in most cases consolidating workloads does not result in less hard-
consolidation, improved
ware – just better performance for existing workloads, and more hardware utilization, and
capacity for new workloads. This does, however, help to delay or reduced hardware costs.

eliminate spending on new hardware, which is reflected in the change in this as a critical driver in 50%
of enterprises in 2006, to 62% in 2008. The perception of improved security has moved from 50% in
2006, to 41% in 2008, reflecting the growing concern over virtualization security, and the increasing
difficulty managing security in this increasingly complex environment.
Other changes have been much less substantial. Desire to reduce downtime has only slipped from
65% in 2006 to 62% in 2008; lower administration and management costs has gone from 57% to 53%;
meeting SLAs has dropped from 48% to 44%; and even the new leading driver, consolidation, has only
moved up from 65% to 69%. All of these are actually within the margin of error for this research, and
are therefore statistically insignificant changes.
Changing Perceptions of Virtualization Management
P le ase rate whe the r v irtualiz ation make s any of

the following manage me nt discipline s e asie r
D R /B C P 75%
65%
64%
50%
49%
49%
43%
42%
2006
S LM 40% 2008
37%
33%
33%
32%
29%
25%
24%
24%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

P lease rate w hether virtualiz ation makes any of the
follow ing management disciplines harder

16%
15%
14%
14%
Inc ident/P roblem Managem ent 10%
13%
13%
11% 2006
IT C os t Managem ent 5% 2008
11%
10%
9%
D R /B C P 4%
8%
7%
7%
S LM 6%
7%
6%
0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18%
In 2008, enterprises are reporting that when it comes to managing virtualization, almost nothing is
easier than they thought is was in 2006, but everything is harder. While many of the changes in the indi-
vidual disciplines are within margin of error for both studies, the overall trend is statistically significant,
and some specific disciplines have showed major changes.
In 2006, for example, only 5% of enterprises believed that security management became harder in a
virtual environment. In 2008, that has more than tripled to 16%, and EMA believes that is still under-
representing the difficulties. Virtualization security has only just started to be explored, and over the
coming 12-24 months will become a significant area of interest for enterprises and vendors alike. EMA
will investigate this area in more detail in upcoming research reports.
Software patching is another discipline where the percentage of
enterprises rating it as more difficult has changed significantly. In
2008, only 6% of enterprises thought this discipline was harder in In 2008, enterprises are
a virtual environment than a physical one; in 2008 that has almost reporting that when it comes
doubled to 11%. EMA again believes this under-represents the to managing virtualization,
problems. Patching in a virtual environment is precarious at best.
Stopped or paused images are still difficult if not impossible to almost nothing is easier than
patch, especially using standard patch tools and mechanisms. As they thought is was in 2006,
enterprises continue to face the multiple layers of complexity, this but everything is harder.
challenge becomes even greater.

IT cost management is the other discipline that is rated significantly harder in 2008. In 2006 only 5%
of enterprises considered this ITIL discipline to be harder in a virtual environment; in 2008 that has
more than doubled to 11%. Tools for capacity measurement and chargeback are critical in a virtual
environment to measure, allocate, and manage costs. Similarly, tools for asset and inventory (including
license) management, and configuration management are critical to reduce or avoid the costs of virtual
machine sprawl.
When looking at the disciplines that enterprises believe become easier under virtualization, almost all
of the changes are negative, and almost all of them are statistically significant.
Change management and software distribution are the two disciplines that face the biggest difference
(26%) between 2006 and 2008. In 2006, 55% of all enterprises considered change management to be
easier in a virtual environment; in 2008, that has plummeted to only 29%. Similarly, the percentage
of enterprises rating software distribution as easier has dropped from 58% in 2006 to 32% in 2008.
Application provisioning also suffered, dropping 18% from 61% of enterprises in 2006, to 43% in
2008. Enterprises are clearly realizing that the dynamic nature of virtualization is not only a ben-
efit, but can be a significant management headache as well. The rapid provisioning, de-provisioning,
updates, and other software change mechanisms are abstracted from management tools and processes
by the additional virtualization layers, and traditional management solutions are often unable to deal
with this abstraction. For effective software distribution and change management, enterprises need
management solutions that truly understand this abstraction, and can deal with the added complexity
of a virtual environment.
Availability management has also had a significant change in this measure, dropping 21% from 71% of
enterprises in 2006, to just 50% of enterprises in 2008. Enterprises are discovering that the manage-
ment and monitoring software that comes with the common virtualization platforms is not enough
to meet the business or technical goals of virtualization. Virtual environments instead need com-
prehensive and sophisticated performance monitoring tools that understand the whole environment
– physical and virtual – and that can track, analyze, and prevent problems across the end-to-end IT
service infrastructure. While such solutions are available, they are few and far between, and still do not
generally accommodate all the layers of complexity in the virtualization landscape.
Security administration faces a drop of 18% of enterprises that consider it to be easier in a virtual
environment – from 42% in 2006 to 24% in 2008. This corresponds with the increase in enterprises
that consider it to be harder.
Only operating system provisioning was rated as easier by more
enterprises in 2008 than it was in 2006. This is partially due to the When looking at the
focus among the major management vendors on providing bet- disciplines that enterprises
ter workload management and OS provisioning tools specifically
designed for virtualization. It is also due to the work done by the believe become easier under
virtualization vendors themselves in promoting automated provi- virtualization, almost all
sioning solutions. Nevertheless, the difference is quite small, and it of the changes are negative,
is conspicuous as the only discipline that appears to have become
easier. Vendors must do more here, and especially in taking the
and almost all of them are
gains from OS provisioning and applying them also to application statistically significant.
provisioning, software distribution, and change management.

It is important to note that these changes in perception are despite the fact that the fundamental needs
of virtualization management have not changed in the last two years. It is also despite the swathe of
new tools for managing virtual environments that have been released since 2006, and the much better
availability of information and education about the requirements for virtual system management.
This then is not a result of actual changes in the manageability of virtual systems. It is far more
likely to be the result of the increasing number of organizations deploying virtualization – including
many organizations that are not exceedingly well prepared for it – and a growing realization of the
real difficulties of managing virtual systems. In this respect,
these outcomes are hardly surprising – and EMA expects
this realization to continue. Virtual environments, as part of Virtual environments, as
a larger enterprise management scenario, introduce signifi-
cant difficulties that are not yet resolved in comprehensive,
part of a larger enterprise
repeatable, and effective ways. This is changing with the management scenario,
gradual education of managers, technicians, and end users, introduce significant
as well as with the increasing availability and sophistication difficulties that are not yet
of management tools, but it is not changing fast enough.
Enterprises will see management difficulties getting worse, resolved in comprehensive,
before they get better. repeatable, and effective ways.
The Growing Pain Of Virtualization Skills
D o you believe you have sufficient skills in your

enterprise today to manage the virtualiz ed systems?
2%
D on’t know
1%
0%
No, definitely not
4%
2006
20%
No, probably not 2008
21%
35%
Yes , probably
43%
43%
Yes , definitely
31%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
In 2006, substantially more enterprises than today thought that they had the right skills to handle their
virtualization deployments. 18 months later, many are realizing the truth. Whereas in 2006, 43% of
enterprises confidently responded that they definitely had the right skills to manage their virtual systems,
in 2008 only 31% have the same confidence. Many of these have shifted to a more circumspect view,
and the proportion of enterprises who think they probably have enough skills has changed more or
less in proportion, from 35% in 2006 to 43% in 2008. The difference – plus a small number of those

who in 2006 did not know – have moved to the “definitely not” In 2006, substantially more
camp, which in 2006 was non-existent, but in 2008 represents 4%
of enterprises. Those who understand that they probably do not
enterprises than today thought
have the right skills remains approximately unchanged, moving that they had the right skills
only from 20% to 21% from 2006 to 2008. to handle their virtualization
EMA expects this chart to continue to change through 2010 and deployments. 18 months later,
beyond, and specifically to slip more toward “no” than “yes.” The many are realizing the truth.
irrational exuberance in virtualization is not limited to the markets
– it has also affected enterprises’ own internal evaluations of their
ability to deploy and manage virtualization. As virtualization deployments continue to grow, there will
be continued pressure on skills. Demand will increase, and skilled people will become correspondingly
harder to find externally. Add to this the increasing complexity of the virtualization deployments, and
the corresponding need for more advanced and comprehensive skills, and this will become even worse in
the coming few years. As more sophisticated management technologies come into the market, this pres-
sure will be alleviated somewhat, but this will not be enough to offset the rising volume and complexity
of virtualization deployments. EMA expects the virtualization skills shortage to rise steeply and cause
significant pain for enterprise IT. It may well reach crisis level before advanced automation and better
management tools successfully address the multiple layers of complexity in a majority of enterprises.
EMA Perspective
Key Outcome – Treat Virtualization as a Strategy, not a Project
Many major findings in this research relate to the key drivers, outcomes, and barriers to success for
virtualization in the enterprise. These are all intricately related, and must be considered in concert, not
just individually.
This is why EMA has for some time recommended enterprises view virtualization as a strategy, not
a project. Virtualization should be about the whole business, not just about IT, and about a range of
long-term benefits, not just (or even) short-term savings. For example, once a server consolidation
project is complete, the enterprise is left with a half-empty data center and a sunk cost in virtualization
technologies and skills, and probably a lot of leftover dormant servers – not necessarily the best pos-
sible outcome. Enterprises need to consider up front how to leverage that investment to make the
entire business better for the long run, not just how to finish a shortsighted, albeit highly valuable,
server consolidation project.
This research strongly reinforces the need to take this strategic approach. For example, as noted above,
in 93% of all enterprises, virtualization is effectively addressing more than just one objective. In over
half of all enterprises, it is achieving five or more. In as many as 10% of all enterprises, it is achiev-
ing 10 or 11 of these objectives simultaneously. This highlights the limited value of engaging with
virtualization as a project, with a single goal. Clearly there are many different objectives that are achiev-
able with a broader view.
Perhaps as importantly, in a disturbingly large number or enterprises virtualization fails to fully meet
expectations (even if only marginally). Beyond some one-off gains, like server consolidation and
hardware cost reduction, relying on a limited virtualization project with a narrow objective is more

likely to result in unmet expectations. Also, with many different barriers to success being evident even
in a single organization, an inability to overcome just one of these barriers can lead to a complete
virtualization failure, if there are not other areas to fall back on. By contrast, taking a truly strategic
approach to virtualization makes it far more likely to be a success. More drivers can be satisfied with a
strategic deployment, more outcomes can be achieved with broader implementation, and if individual
barriers prevent achievement in one area, success is still possible in others. Looking at virtualization as
a strategy – with a wide range of use cases and outcomes – will end up with a great deal of payback,
financially and otherwise, as it achieves in significant ways across five, ten, or even more different
objectives, to at least some degree.
Key Outcome – Prepare for Multiple Layers of Complexity

Another major finding from this research is around the multiple layers of complexity – and the man-
agement difficulties they cause. This research has discussed in detail the three most important layers
of complexity – the ‘virtualization triple-threat’ of multiple virtualization platforms, technologies, and
vendors – but also highlights many other layers of complexity, including:
• M
ultiple use cases – showing that virtualization is not just
for testing anymore
• M
ultiple virtualization drivers and outcomes – busting the
Key Outcomes:
myth that virtualization is just for server consolidation • Treat Virtualization as a
• M
ultiple barriers to adoption and success – such as Strategy, not a Project
politics, skills, cost, and other issues • Prepare for Multiple
• M
ultiple and separate IT management teams – including Layers of Complexity
existing teams and specialists • Adapt to the Changing
• M
ultiple skill requirements – and the difficulties enterprises Virtualization Landscape
face in filling them
• M
ultiple management disciplines – with the growing
understanding of how hard virtualization management really is
• M
ultiple licensing and support models – especially for applications, but also for operating
systems, and management technologies
• M
ultiple different management tools – and how far away they are from delivering comprehensive
virtualization management
Enterprises must be better prepared to deal with these layers of complexity, and management software
vendors clearly need to do a better job of helping them.
Key Outcome – Adapt to the Changing Virtualization Landscape

The final major outcome from this research is the dramatic changes that are occurring, in reality as well
as in perception. The multiple layers of complexity are actually becoming more significant, as more
and more enterprises embark on virtualization across more technologies, more platforms, and more
vendors – not to mention all the other layers of complexity considered in this research. Virtualization
continues to grow strongly across all of these layers. The workloads that enterprises are deploying
virtualization for are also changing, and again they are all growing. Deployment of virtualization has

not decreased for any single workload since 2006, and among the most important increases are mis-
sion-critical production environments – application servers, database servers, middleware, and others.
Drivers are changing too – if only marginally – as enterprises react to the availability of new products
and capabilities in virtualization, and as the education and marketing processes of major vendors tell
more specific stories about virtualization and its key outcomes. Enterprises need to be prepared for the
consequences of all these changes.
One key consequence of the extraordinary growth of platforms, technologies, vendors, use cases,
workloads, drivers, and more is the growing possibility of a skills crisis in virtualization, and the
effect that crisis could have. Human factors continue to be the biggest issues in virtualization, from
being the most important barriers to virtualization, to the relatively poor showing in virtualization
management skills. Virtualization skills will continue to be difficult and costly to find, develop, and
maintain, and other human factors will continue to be the most important issues in virtualization suc-
cess. For unprepared enterprises, they will continue to hurt their ability to achieve strategic objectives,
drive up virtualization costs, increase the likelihood of important errors and other failures affecting
business users, and reduce the real and perceived value of virtualization. This is especially true in
light of the substantial (although possibly unrealized) expansion in the deployment of virtualization
technologies that directly affect end users – especially desktop virtualization – and the added exposure
and increased importance any virtualization problems take on when end users are directly affected.
Addressing the possible skills crisis will require immediate action on the part of enterprises – to
improve their skills primarily through internal development; and from vendors, to drive even harder at
delivering software solutions that embed intelligence, automate processes, and integrate with broader
management mechanisms.
This immediate action is needed because in the face of the changing skill requirements, management
of virtualization is not getting any easier. Fundamentally it is not getting any harder, but across the
board enterprises are realizing that virtualization management is difficult (as it always has been), and
adjusting their perceptions to come closer to reality. As EMA predicted back in 2006, security contin-
ues to be a major concern, and over the coming 12-24 months will be among the most important areas
for development of people, processes, and technologies in virtualization management. However other
management disciplines will remain critical, and clearly enterprises are understanding the increased dif-
ficulty virtualization brings in managing areas like patching, software distribution, change, performance
and availability, configuration, and perhaps most important, IT costs.

Conclusion
There are many other outcomes in this report of significant consequence, but these three key findings
represent the most importance challenges of enterprise virtualization today. Enterprises are gaining
major benefits from virtualization, and it does live up to its hype in so many different ways – from
project objectives to strategic objectives, from cost reduction to improved agility, from IT benefits to
direct end-user benefits.
However, this report shows that these outcomes do not come without any pain, and without any
consequence. There are significant difficulties, the most important of which are the need to work on
virtualization as a strategy, not a project; dealing with the multiple layers of complexity; and handling
the rapid rate of change and the problems that creates.
Enterprises will need to take decisive steps to shore up their defenses against these challenges, and
vendors must help them to do so. There are some fine technology solutions available today, but none
will solve all the problems. It is perhaps axiomatic to note that even as better, more diverse, more com-
prehensive, and more integrated technology solutions are developed, they will still not overcome all
these challenges. As ever, enterprises must direct their energies at a three-pronged approach, including
not just technology, but also people and process. The sooner they are able to do so, the sooner they can
overcome the difficulties of recent virtualization and management trends, and position themselves to
achieve success as the future actuates and extends these virtualization and management forecasts.

Appendix A: Virtualization Definitions and Taxonomy
The landscape of virtualization is a minefield of semantic differences. To help navigate through this
difficult space, EMA has produced a taxonomy of virtualization. Much of this taxonomy was origi-
nally published in the groundbreaking EMA 2006 research paper, Virtualization: Exposing The Intangible
Enterprise (http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/research/ema_product.php?product=5000_1147) –
a seminal report that substantially defined virtualization and its many manifestations for an entire indus-
try. EMA has updated this taxonomy to accommodate recent changes in virtualization technology.
Virtualization
A technique for abstracting (or hiding) the physical characteristics of computing resources from the
way in which other systems, applications, or end users interact with those resources. This includes mak-
ing a single physical resource (such as a server, an operating system, an application, or storage device)
appear to function as multiple logical resources; or it can include making multiple physical resources
(such as storage devices or servers) appear as a single logical resource.
Hypervisor
A relatively small software (or firmware) component that enables multiple ‘guest’ operating systems to
dynamically share the resources of an underlying ‘host’ system, by allocating resources and providing
an interface for all low-level compute requests (e.g., for CPU, memory, disk or network I/O, etc). A
hypervisor can run directly on top of bare hardware to provide a server virtualization environment,
or on top of a fully functioning operating system to provide an OS virtualization environment. Also
known as a Virtual Machine Monitor or Manager (VMM). In common usage these terms are inter-
changeable, even though technically they provide different functions..
Hardware Virtualization
A method of running multiple guest operating environments directly on top of base hardware, allocat-
ing fully discrete physical hardware resources (CPU, memory, I/O channels, etc,) separately to each
guest, without requiring a complete host operating system. Typically used in older and larger server
systems, but also recently adapted at chip-level for micro-level x86 environments, this method uses a
single enclosure to house essentially isolated compute hardware components, which are not shared by
any of the guest operating environments.
Server Virtualization
A method of running multiple guest operating environments directly on top of base hardware, sharing
fine-grained resources (CPU, memory, etc.), without requiring a complete host operating system. This
method of virtualization runs standard operating systems such as Windows, UNIX, or Linux on top
of a hypervisor that is installed directly onto a bare system. While this is most commonly used for
server environments, it is equally capable of hosting desktop environments. Also known as hardware
emulation or as native, platform, system, or “Type 1” virtualization.
Paravirtualization
A type of server virtualization where the guest OS makes some specific system requests (or ‘hyper-
calls’) intentionally to the hypervisor, rather than to the base hardware (to be intercepted and translated
by the hypervisor). Hypercalls are typically made for resources that are difficult, impossible, or unsafe

to virtualize (such as network and storage I/O calls, or privileged operations like updating page tables).
Paravirtualization requires guest operating systems to be modified (paravirtualized or ‘enlightened’)
with specific hypervisor-aware drivers, so that they are aware of this unique environment.
Operating System (OS) Virtualization

A method of running multiple logical (or virtual) operating systems (or “guests”) on top of a fully
functioning base (or “host”) operating system. This method of virtualization usually uses a standard
operating system such as Windows, UNIX, or Linux as the host, plus a hypervisor, to run multiple
guest operating systems. Sometimes referred to as “Type 2” virtualization.
Application Virtualization
A method of providing an individual application to an end user without needing to completely install
this application on the user’s local system. Unlike traditional client-server operations, the application
itself is not necessarily designed to be used by multiple users at one time, and indeed is unlikely to be
shared in the same way. Each user has their own, fully functional application environment, with few or
no components actually being shared with other users.
Application Isolation
A method of installing and/or executing application software on a local desktop in a way that it
does not interact with other system and application components, settings, and configurations on that
desktop. Typically, isolated applications do not use the same system environment settings and loca-
tions – Windows registry, Dynamic Link Library (DLL) folders, etc. – so while they appear to run as
a standard application in the end user environment, they are effectively separated from the rest of the
environment, and run in their own ‘sandbox’. Application isolation is essentially a subset of application
virtualization.
Software Streaming
A method of delivering software components – including applications, desktops, and even complete
operating systems – dynamically and incrementally from a central location to an end-user over the
network. In this model (unlike traditional software delivery) the software component is not delivered as
a single block or file, but rather is repackaged for incremental delivery as a stream of data. This allows
the software to be used at the destination even before delivery has been completed, and in most cases
just seconds after it has started (similar to video streaming such as from YouTube.com). Typically, the
most important ‘core’ functions will be available for use immediately, with less important or rarely
used components downloaded only as required. Streaming is essentially a subset of other virtualization
technologies (desktop, application).
Server-Based (or Remote) Desktop Virtualization

A method of providing a complete compute environment (with an independent OS, applications, data,
etc. – a logical or virtual ‘desktop’) to an end user, which runs on a remote system and is delivered
to the user across a network. In this model, the local device (PC, laptop, or thin client) sends all user
input (keystrokes, mouse clicks, etc.) across the network to the remote server; the server processes the
activity, and then sends the resulting user interface back across the network to the user.

Client-Based (or Local) Desktop Virtualization
A method of providing a complete compute environment (with an independent OS, applications, data,
etc. – a logical or virtual ‘desktop’) to an end user, which runs on the local system, generally on top
of a standard local operating system. In this model – which is essentially an end-user implementation
of OS virtualization – the virtual desktop typically runs in a window on the physical desktop, much
like any other application, although it may or may not allow user-level interaction with the underlying
operating system.
Storage Virtualization
A method of providing access to data storage without needing to define to systems and applications
where the storage is physically located or managed. For example, a single large disk may be partitioned
into smaller, logical disks that each user can access as though it were a single network drive; or a
number of disks may be aggregated to present a single storage interface to end users and applications.
Typically storage virtualization applies to larger SAN or NAS arrays, but it is just as accurately applied
to the logical partitioning of a local desktop hard drive.
Network Virtualization
A method of abstracting fine-grained network services, resources, or components from the systems,
applications, and network subsystems that utilize or communicate with those components. For exam-
ple, Network Address Translation abstracts the ‘real’ IP address of an endpoint (such as a desktop
in a local area network) from the ‘virtual’ IP address that appears to an external network (such as the
Internet) communicating with that endpoint. Similarly, a virtual private network (VPN) establishes a
private, mostly encrypted network layer that is essentially hidden from the public network over which
it travels (often the Internet).
Data Virtualization
A method of abstracting the source of individual data items – including entire files, database contents,
document metadata, messaging information, and more – from the systems and applications that are
using them. Typically this is achieved by providing a single common data access layer for many differ-
ent data access methods – such as SQL, XML, JDBC, File access, MQ, JMS, etc. This common data
access layer interprets calls from any application using a single protocol, and translates the application
request to the specific protocols required to store and retrieve data from any supported data storage
method. This allows applications to access data with a single methodology, regardless of how or where
the data is actually stored.
Clustering
A method of making several local area network attached physical systems appear to systems and appli-
cations as a single processing resource. This differs significantly from other virtualization technologies,
which normally do the opposite, i.e., make a single physical system appear as multiple independent
operating environments. A typical use case for clustering is to group a number of identical physical
servers to provide distributed processing power for high-volume applications; or as a ‘Web farm’, a
collection of Web servers that can all handle large loads for Web-based applications.

Grid Computing
A method of making several wide area network attached physical systems appear to systems and
applications as a single processing resource. Like a cluster, a grid abstracts multiple physical servers
from the applications running on them, but the physical systems in a grid are normally spread out over
a wide network (such as the Internet), and the physical servers that comprise a grid do not have to be
identical. Indeed, a grid is typically made up of heterogeneous systems, in diverse locations, each of
which may specialize in a particular processing capability.
Software-As-A-Service (SaaS)
A software application delivery model whereby an external third party (service provider, software ven-
dor) provides end users with application functionality from a remote location, typically delivered over
the Internet using a standard Web browser as the user interface. SaaS users will rarely install any other
software locally (excepting in some cases lightweight plug-ins – Java Runtime or ActiveX – or limited
client-side agents), and do not own the software itself. Payment (where it is required) is typically only
for the rights to use the service, not for a software package or any code.
Thin Client
A local end-user hardware device with a screen and human interfaces (keyboard, mouse, etc.) that
has limited or no independent processing, storage, or peripherals of its own, relying substantially on
a remote system for virtually all operations. Typically, a thin client will have limited local processing
that allows it to merely send and receive I/O to/from a central server, which hosts the operating
system, desktop, and applications (i.e., used in conjunction with Server-Based, or Remote, Desktop
Virtualization).

Appendix B: Methodology and Demographics
For this research, EMA invited over 35,000 pre-qualified IT professionals to complete an extensive
Web-based survey crafted independently by EMA expert analysts, consisting of almost 240 specific
data points in total. Respondents were further qualified based on their response to three specific
questions:
• A
re you responsible for buying, managing, or operating virtualization solutions in your
organization?
• Do you have a working knowledge of virtualization solutions in your organization?
• D
o you have virtualization solutions implemented, or are you implementing them within the
next 12 months?
Respondents that answered “No” to any of these questions were rejected. This means that all respon-
dents (in addition to being independently pre-qualified through the initial invitation process) self-iden-
tified as being active participants with a working knowledge of a current or imminent virtualization
deployment. In fact, most respondents (75%) have a current virtualization implementation, and the
majority (59%) has had a virtualization implementation for over 12 months, while a small minority
(11%) is planning a virtualization implementation over the coming 12 months, as seen below.
W hich of the follow ing best describes the current status of your company’s
V irtualiz ation implementation?
H av e had one or more

Virtualiz ation solutions
imple me nte d for 12 months 59%
or more
H av e had one or more

Virtualiz ation solutions
imple me nte d for le ss than 12
16%
months
C urre ntly imple me nting

Virtualiz ation 15%
Imple me nting Virtualiz ation

within the ne xt 12 months 11%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

In total, this survey netted 627 valid responses, over two-thirds of which came from the independent
contact base owned by EMA, with the rest being additional respondents from a contact base supplied
by the report sponsors. Any anomalies (including outliers identified as resulting from using sponsors’
contacts) were identified using statistical analysis and excluded from this report, resulting in the 627
valid responses. Statistical analysis reveals the resulting data has a confidence interval of 95%. Sponsors
had no other direct involvement in or influence on the survey creation or execution, nor in any of the
subsequent evaluation and analysis of the results.
Respondents were:
• Primarily decision makers (38%), evaluators (33%), and recommenders (26%)
• F
rom many industries, including financial and insurance services (14%), manufacturing (11%),
healthcare (10%), education (8%), and government (7%)
• P
rimarily headquartered in North America (87%), but with significant operations in Europe-
Middle East-Africa (46%), Asia-Pacific (40%), and Latin America (35%)
• W
orking in Infrastructure Operations and Planning (32%), IT Architecture (20%), Data Center
Operations (16%), and Network Operations (10%)
Companies that the respondents work for included:
• M
any large enterprises with over 20,000 employees (28%), but also a significant proportion of
small and medium businesses with up to 150 employees (37%), and mid to large enterprises
between 1500 and 20,000 employees (36%)
• C
ompanies with various revenues, from less than $20m (18%) to over $1b (34%), and also from
government and non-profit agencies (8%)

Detailed demographics can be seen in the figures below.
W hich group do you belong to? (R esponse show n only for 83% of respondents w ho
indicated they w orked in IT/IS /N etw ork department )
IT Archite cture 32%
Infrastructure O pe rations
and P lanning 30%
O pe rations – D ata C e nte r 8%
IT Financial M anage me nt 8%
O the r (P le ase spe cify) 6%
O pe rations – N e twork
O pe rations C e nte r (N O C ) 6%
Applications D e v e lopme nt 5%
S e rv ice D e sk, S e rv ice

S upport, H e lp D e sk 4%
S e curity 1%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
W hat is your primary role in the purchasing decisions for V irtualiz ation solutions?
D e cision make r 38%
T e chnical e v aluator 33%
R e comme nde r 26%
B udge t prov ide r 2%
N one of the abov e 1%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

For w hich of the follow ing IT technologies or initiatives do you
have direct involvement in or a w orking know ledge?
Virtualiz ation 88%

S yste ms M anage me nt 73%
S torage 68%
S e curity 57%
N e twork M anage me nt 57%
Applications M anage me nt 52%
C hange and C onfiguration M anage me nt 50%
S e rv ice D e sk/H e lp D e sk 47%
IT Asse t M anage me nt/Financial M anage me nt 44%
IT G ov e rnance /R isk/C ompliance M anage me nt 40%
IT S e rv ice M anage me nt (IT S M )/S LM /B S M /S e rv ice C atalog 39%
C onfiguration M anage me nt D atabase (C M D B ) 32%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
For IT-related issues in your organiz ation, w hich of

the follow ing activities are you involved in?
R e comme nd and spe cify

products/se rv ice s 85%
E v aluate products/se rv ice s 83%
D e te rmine ne e d 76%
T e chnical de cision make r 73%
Financial de cision make r 28%
N one of the abov e 1%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

Q 6_1 W hich of the follow ing best describes your company’s primary industry?
F inanc e/B ank ing/Ins uranc e
M anufac turing – A ll O ther (N ot C om puter or N etw ork ing

3% R elated)
4%
14% H ealthc are/M edic al/P harm ac eutic al
4%
E duc ation
4%
G overnm ent
H igh Tec hnology - R es eller/V A R /S y s tem s Integrator

5%
11% R etail/W holes ale/D is tribution
5% P rofes s ional S ervic es /C ons ulting - C om puter or

N etw ork ing R elated
H igh Tec hnology - A pplic ation/Internet/M anaged/N etw ork
S ervic e P rovider
5% H igh Tec hnology - S oftw are
10%
O ther (P leas e s pec ify )
6%
Telec om m unic ations
7% 8%
M anufac turing - C om puter H ardw are or N etw ork ing
R elated
In w hich region are you located?
N orth Ame rica 88%
E urope -M iddle E ast-Africa

(E M E A) 7%
C e ntral & S outh Ame rica

(Latin Ame rica) 2%
Asia-P acific (AP AC ) 2%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

In w hich regions does your company operate? S elect all that apply.
N orth Ame rica 91%
E urope -M iddle E ast-Africa

(E M E A)
46%
Asia-P acific (AP AC ) 40%
C e ntral & S outh Ame rica

(Latin Ame rica) 35%
R e st of World 21%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
H ow many employees are in your company w orldw ide?
Le ss than 250 15%
250 - 499 7%
500 - 999 9%
1,000 - 1,499 6%
1,500 - 4,999 15%
5,000 - 9,999 12%
10,000 - 19,999 9%
20,000 or more 28%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

W hat is your organiz ation's annual revenue?
Le ss than $1 M illion 4%
$1 M illion to unde r $5 M illion 5%
$5 M illion to unde r $20 M illion 9%
$20 M illion to unde r $100

M illion 13%
$100 M illion to unde r $1

B illion 21%
$1 B illion or more 34%
N /A (gov t/non-profit) 8%
D on’t know 6%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
H ow many desktops (or equivalents e.g. thin clients) does your organiz ation support?
Le ss than 250 16%
250 - 499 9%
500 - 999 10%
1,000 - 1,499 9%
1,500 - 4,999 15%
5,000 - 9,999 11%
10,000 - 19,999 8%
20,000 or more 21%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

H ow many physical servers in total do you have in all your data center(s)?
Le ss than 10 6%
10 - 19 7%
20 - 49 12%
50 - 99 12%
100 - 199 12%
200 - 499 14%
500 - 999 9%
1,000 - 1,999 7%
2,000 or more 21%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

About Enterprise Management Associates, Inc.
Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst and consulting firm dedicated to the IT management market.
The firm provides IT vendors and enterprise IT professionals with objective insight into the real-world business value of long-established and emerging
technologies, ranging from security, storage and IT Service Management (ITSM) to the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), virtualization and
service-oriented architecture (SOA). Even with its rapid growth, EMA has never lost sight of the client, and continues to offer personalized support and
convenient access to its analysts. For more information on the firm’s extensive library of IT management research, free online IT Management Solutions
Center and IT consulting offerings, visit www.enterprisemanagement.com.
This report in whole or in part may not be duplicated, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or retransmitted without prior written permission of
Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All opinions and estimates herein constitute our judgement as of this date and are subject to change without notice.
Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. “EMA” and “Enterprise Management
Associates” are trademarks of Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
©2008 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. EMA™, ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES®, and the mobius
symbol are registered trademarks or common-law trademarks of Enterprise Management Associates, Inc.
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Virtualization and Management:

Trends, Forecasts, and

Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

Tes t and D evelopm ent 79%

P roduc tion Applic ation S ervers 74%

E nd-Us er Applic ations 54%

D is as ter R ec overy S ys tem s 51%

P roduc tion D atabas e S ervers 50%

P roduc tion W eb S ervers 47%

D ata/S torage Managem ent S ys tem s 47%

E nd-Us er D es ktops 45%

P roduc tion Middlew are S ys tem s 41%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

S erver c ons olidation/utiliz ation 69% 30% 1%

R educ e dow ntim e 62% 33% 5%

R educ e hardw are c os ts 62% 35% 3%

E nable D R /B C P 60% 37% 4%

Inc reas ed flexibility/agility 59% 36% 4%

Low er adm in/m gm t c os ts 53% 43% 4%

Meet S LAs 44% 48% 8%

Im prove s ec urity and c ontrol 41% 49% 10%

R egain/rationaliz e floor s pac e 38% 43% 19%

R educ e s oftw are c os ts 37% 53% 11%

C ritic al S om ew hat im portant Not S o Im portant

Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

3 0% C om pletely D is s atis fied

S om ew hat D is s atis fied

Neither S atis fied nor D is s atis fied

S om ew hat S atis fied

C om pletely S atis fied

Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

Addressing Specific Needs

W hich of the follow ing needs are effectively being addressed

S erver c ons olidation/utiliz ation 73%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

Comparing Critical Drivers with Actual Outcomes

R egain/rationaliz e floor s pac e 10%

R educ e hardw are c os ts 7%

S erver c ons olidation/utiliz ation 4%

Inc reas ed flexibility/agility 0%

R educ e s oftw are c os ts -3%

Low er adm in/m gm t c os ts -3%

R educ e dow ntim e -9%

Meet S LAs -9%

Im prove s ec urity and c ontrol -10%

-15% -10% -5% 0% 5% 10% 15%

U nde rachie v e ing E xpe ctations | O v e rachie v e ing E xpe ctations

Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

V Mw are S hare P rice - Aug 2007 to Mar 2008

Virtualization and Management: Trends, Forecasts, and Recommendations

In te rn a l ‘p o litica l’ issu e s 43%

Ap p lica tio n s a re u n su p p o rte d 35%

In su fficie n t virtu a liza tio n skills 34%

Hig h co st o f a va ila b le so lu tio n s 30%

D ifficu lty id e n tifyin g u se ca se (s) 20%

So lu tio n s la ckin g fu n ctio n a lity 16%

Pro vin g a u d it co m p lia n ce 16%