Application virtualisation
is emerging as the next step for organisations consolidating
their infrastructure, analyst firm IDC has said.
Server virtualisation has rapidly gained acceptance as a
cost-effective method for partitioning server resources to improve
resource use, according to John Humphreys, programme director of
IDC Enterprise Platform Group.
Humphries said the next step was extending virtualisation to the
application layer of the IT stack, helping to satisfy user demand
to better respond to business challenges.
“By decoupling static and siloed applications from dedicated
datacentre infrastructure, it is possible to match resource and
performance requirements in real-time,” said Humphreys.
He made the comments in response to
the vision laid out by application virtualisation
software provider DataSynapse of a real-time infrastructure
that helps large organisations align IT resources with business
objectives.
By addressing the business issues of both computing supply and
application demand, the supplier claims businesses can improve
service quality to corporate end-users and customers, reducing
operating expenses and creating new revenue streams more
quickly.
“By aggregating server capacity into a virtual resource pool
that can be adaptively allocated based on application demand,
schedule or priority, organisations are able to increase
flexibility and better respond to changing business needs,” said
Humphreys.
Through application virtualisation, using policy-based
automation to intelligently match available server supply with
application demand, DataSynapse said organisations were looking to
gain control of complex enterprise applications. It also can help
enable automation of service level management and improve
application performance.
It said re-using existing resources in this way could reduce an
organisation’s application and infrastructure footprint by 30% –
eliminating the need to purchase new hardware for, in some cases,
as long as 18 months.
IDC on virtualisation >>
Microsoft forges on with virtualisation strategy >>
VirtualizeIT offers course on the benefits of IT virtualisation
>>
How virtualising applications can protect computers from their
installed software >>
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