Although the document is almost a year old, Gartner’s November 2009 report entitled Virtualization With VMware or Hyper-V: What You Need To Know is a really good read for people that are either considering a new virtualization initiative or considering moving to a new platform. The report starts out by debunking three myths:
- The server virtualization is already common. Gartner indicates that only about 16% of workloads were virtualized as of November 2009.
- Virtualization is all about saving money. Greenbacks are just one virtualization benefit. Organizations move to virtual infrastructure for other benefits, too, including availability and flexibility.
- Virtualization is a commodity. Not yet!
The November 2009 report goes on to say that Gartner expects to see a ten-fold increase in the number of virtual machines between 2008 and 2012. November 2008 saw 5.8 million virtual machines with an expectation that organizations will be running 58 million virtual machines by 2012. While all ships will rise in that time due to the massive increase in sheer numbers, Gartner expects to see VMware’s market share fall from 89% in 2008 to 65% in 2012. During the same period, Microsoft’s virtualization market share will jump from 8% to 27%. Citrix, Red Hat, Parallels, Novell and Oracle will remain niche players.
Gartner’s report goes on to recommend a number of other steps and to provide quite a bit more generalized insight into how organizations should move forward to adopt virtualization at a rapid pace. Use this information to help inform your virtualization strategy.