Thomas J. Bittman
Server virtualization is a maturing but still very dynamic market, and there are several key trends reshaping server virtualization in 2012, and affecting the advice we are giving to our clients:
1) Competitive Choices Mature: Imagine how the virtualization market would be different if the server virtualization trend was starting today. VMware’s competition has greatly improved in the past few years, and price is becoming a big differentiator. Enterprises that have not yet started to virtualize (and they exist, but tend to be small) have real choices today.
2) Second Sourcing Grows: Existing VMware users may not be migrating away from VMware, but they’re concerned with costs and potential lock-in. A growing number of enterprises are pursuing a strategy of “second sourcing” – deploying a different virtualization technology in a separate part of the organization. Heterogeneous virtualization management is mostly aspirational, although there is interest.
3) Pricing Models in Flux: From expensive hypervisors to free hypervisors to core-based pricing and now memory-based entitlements – virtualization pricing has always been in flux, and trends toward private and hybrid cloud will ensure that virtualization pricing will continue to morph and challenge existing enterprise IT funding models.
4) Penetration and Saturation: Virtualization hitting 50% penetration. Competition and new, small customers driving down prices. The market is growing, but not like it used to, and vendor behavior will change significantly because of it. And don’t forget the impact on server vendors – the next few years will prove to be a challenge until virtualization slows down.
5) Cloud Service Providers Are Placing Bets: IaaS vendors can’t ignore the virtualization that is taking place in enterprises. Creating an on-ramp to their offerings is critical, which means placing bets – should they create their own standards (perhaps limited their appeal), buy into the virtualization software used by enterprises (perhaps commoditizing themselves), or build/buy software that improves interoperability (which may or may not work well)? Not an easy choice, and winners and losers will being determined.
Maturity for the server virtualization market doesn’t mean that it stabilizes – if anything, trends in this market point to continued change and even some turmoil. Enterprises and vendors need to stay on their toes.
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16 responses so far ↓
1 Garter lists top 5 server virtualization trends for 2012 | ZDNet March 21, 2012 at 3:40 pm
[...] has identified five top server virtualization trends to watch in 2012. The Gartner Group announced today top five server virtualization trends to watch in [...]
2 Gartner Server Virtualization Trends: Competitors Threaten VMware’s Reign | ServicesANGLE March 21, 2012 at 7:55 pm
[...] imgArrJS.length; var rows=imgArrLength/3; var curPos = 0; for (i=0;i READ MORE Tweet In a blog post, Gartner analyst Tom Bittman identifies the top server virtualization trends to watch out for in [...]
3 Top Five Server Virtualization Trends, 2012 according to Gartner | UP2V March 22, 2012 at 7:04 am
[...] Bittman is a vice president and distinguished analyst with Gartner Research. In his blogpost titled Top Five Server Virtualization Trends, 2012 he writes about 5 trends in server virtualization [...]
4 Eric Hennessey March 22, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Interesting post, and it tracks pretty well with what we’ve been seeing with customers. Competition is definitely heating up, and where Microsoft’s Hyper-V barely seemed to be on the radar a year ago, we’re starting to see some fairly aggressive adoption today. While we HAVE seen some customers actually moving from VMware, those are few and far between.
Many large enterprises now require extensive justification to deploy a new app on physical servers. Virtualization is no longer the exception…it’s the rule.
Eric Hennessey
24×7 Availability Evangelist
Storage and Availability Management Group
Symantec Corp.
5 Gartner Names Top 5 Virtualization Trends in 2012 | IT Security News March 22, 2012 at 8:27 pm
[...] Bittman, vice president and distinguished analyst at research firm Gartner, wrote up a list of five changes in the virtualization market trending this [...]
6 Gartner Lists Top 5 Server Virtualization Trends for 2012 » Virtual Bridges VDI, VDI Gen2, Virtual Desktops, VDI, VERDE VDI March 28, 2012 at 3:54 pm
[...] a recent Gartner blog post, well known analyst Tom Bittman identified what he sees as the top five key trends reshaping the [...]
7 Virtual Intelligence Briefing » Virtualization Trends for the Year 2012 April 27, 2012 at 11:23 pm
[...] Gartner Group announced what they consider the top five server virtualization trends for 2012. In the brief analysis which we are sharing below, they emphasize that while server [...]
8 Study: Companies experience unforeseen issues with increased server virtualization adoption « CopperEgg May 1, 2012 at 5:31 pm
[...] to a recent blog post by Gartner analyst Tom Bittman, server virtualization is reaching adoption rates of roughly 50 percent. As the [...]
9 Four Considerations for Transitioning to a Virtual Environment | May 2, 2012 at 11:07 am
[...] everyone is doing it. Virtualization is certainly in vogue; in fact, Gartner says it now has close to 50% penetration in the enterprise. And with benefits like cost savings and increased efficiency, who wouldn’t [...]
10 Cloud hype to last for another 2 to 10 years – Inside IT Storage August 7, 2012 at 9:29 am
[...] that Gartner also cited penetration and saturation as two key trends for virtualization in 2012 in this blog post. “Penetration and Saturation: Virtualization hitting 50% penetration. Competition and new, [...]
11 Virtualization projects require planning to remain secure, efficient | Simply Security August 7, 2012 at 11:37 am
[...] a recent blog post, distinguished Gartner analyst Thomas Bittman noted that the server virtualization market is still [...]
12 eUKhost October 6, 2012 at 10:51 am
Thanks, really good points all what are effective to make a move further for cloud.
13 Come sarà la virtualizzazione nel 2013 secondo Red Hat - CloudTalk.it December 4, 2012 at 5:52 am
[...] alternativa a VMware. Al giorno d’oggi quasi il 50% del carichi di lavoro x86 sono virtualizzati (Fonte). Man mano che le imprese ne estendono l’applicazione, hanno iniziato a valutare piattaforme [...]
14 Virtualization – Entering a New Era in the Middle East | Emirates Week January 14, 2013 at 12:42 pm
[...] virtualization, there was one choice of vendor: VMware. Fast forward to today, and nearly 50% of x86 workloads are now virtualized. As organizations look to expand that footprint, they have begun to explore alternative [...]
15 ‘Virtualization is Entering a New Era in the Middle East’, says Expert – Free Express Press Release Distribution January 14, 2013 at 12:42 pm
[...] virtualization, there was one choice of vendor: VMware. Fast forward to today, and nearly 50% of x86 workloads are now virtualized. As organizations look to expand that footprint, they have begun to explore alternative [...]
16 Definindo a implementação distribuível em DevOps | iMasters January 28, 2013 at 8:00 am
[...] que organizações consolidassem, rápida e facilmente, seus recursos de cálculo subutilizados. Os analistas da Gartner estimam que 50% de todos os aplicativos são executados agora em ambientes [...]
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