Virtualization Trends in 2010

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It is that time of year when prognosticators try to forecast the year ahead. One research firm, TheInfoPro believes that information security spending will likely recover in 2010. In surveys being conducted, Nearly four in ten (37 percent) of enterprises interviewed by the firm will increase their information security spending next year, while less than one in five (19 percent) will experience declining spending. Others indicated a moderate growth and nearly 44 percent are indicating stable spending.

When looking at trends for Fortune 1000 and midsize enterprises, the firm’s current research reveals that these organizations plan to focus their budget dollars and man-hours on improving infrastructure and optimizing performance in 2010. Based on interviews with more than 1,000 information technology decision-makers from more than 800 organizations in North America, a key theme in the majority of organizations is that almost all respondents will see a continued halt on new IT projects.

“We had hoped in the second half of 2009 business units would demand new projects, applications, lines of business, etc., but that has not been the case,” comments Ken Male, CEO of TheInfoPro. “However, there is benefit from these tough times; for example, IT departments will expand services based on the consolidation and virtualization measures that have worked well for them to get through this recession.” 



Key Themes in 2010:

General Spending

• Spending will focus on increasing existing infrastructure needs versus IT departments embarking on new projects or pilots.
• Technology purchases will focus on the optimization of existing server, networking and storage assets, requiring a six- to 12-month ROI.
• Hot new trends in technology will be prioritized if they’re easy to bring on and if they demonstrate a quick ROI.
• Upgrade investments will be made to support virtualization performance demands, especially in the area of networking.

Servers and Virtualization

• Server spending turned net positive, with 30 percent of respondents indicating increased spending and 22 percent noting decreases for 2010.
• Companies will need to invest more in hardware, but not all vendors will reap the benefits of those sales; respondents point to Dell and Hewlett-Packard as first-choice vendors.
• Desktop virtualization will see a major increase in pilot programs and installations in 2010.

Cloud

• While nearly 60 percent of server organizations are not evaluating or planning to use cloud computing, the percentage of these organizations indicating interest in adopting cloud computing has nearly doubled in the past year, going from 20 percent to 40 percent.
• Thirty percent of respondents indicated they would be slow to adopt cloud computing due to immaturity of technology. Concerns over security followed closely behind, with 25 percent of respondents indicating this as their number one concern for adoption.
• While internal models are favored (53 percent), there are a substantial number of organizations looking at a hybrid of both internal and external models (34 percent).

The survey information is preliminary, with final data expected at the end of the month.