As the usage of server virtualisation increases to
become a mainstream activity, a small but growing number of firms,
including small to medium-size businesses (SMBs), are said to be
piloting Cloud-based computing initiatives.
This is the key finding of a new survey by Forrester Research
who believe that fundamentally all firms, including
SMBs, are rethinking and overhauling IT infrastructure and client
systems in order to achieve greater flexibility, efficiency, and
performance.
The survey of 2,600 technology decision-makers in the US and
Europe has revealed that
a tipping point
has been reached for SMB's utilisation of server virtualisation
with over half (53%) of SMBs already implementing x86 server
virtualisation or doing so within the next 12 months. SMBs have
virtualised already about 36% of their OS instances and within two
years, SMBs expect to virtualise 61% of them. Nearly three-quarters
(74%) of SMBs said they would look to lower PC costs with
technologies such as various forms of desktop or client
virtualisation.
With such increased server virtualisation, SMBs, according to
Forrester, are showing
growing interest in Cloud service offerings such as
pay-per-use-hosting of virtual servers. Yet such moves will start
with a small and slowly growing base with only two percent of SMBs
having already implemented pay-per-use-hosting of virtual servers,
and two more SMBs planning to do so within the next 12 months.
Forrester also revealed that despite the hype about Web 2.0,
decision-makers at SMBs regarded their peers and colleagues are the
most valued traditional source of information for purchase
decisions.