NEW YORK—Base-level virtualization—the dividing up of physical boxes into multiple virtual machines—is taking hold in the x86 world, according to vendors and analysts at a conference on the technology here on Feb. 6. The next step is going to be bulking up the software options that enable such capabilities as policy-based, automated provisioning and deploying of those virtual machines.

In an interview during the IDC-sponsored conference, Nick van der Zweep, director of virtualization and Integrity server software for Hewlett-Packard, noted that such automated capabilities are commonplace in the high-end server arena, where partitioning and similar virtualization technologies have been present in RISC and EPIC systems for years.

For example, HP offers its Virtual Server Environment for its Integrity and HP 9000 systems, an integrated virtualization that offers greater flexibility and automation in the managing of virtual machines. About 60 percent of the high-end systems—running its PA-RISC chips and Intel's Itanium processors—ship with partitioning features, and the number of those that also ship with VSE is growing, van der Zweep said.

"We've had VSE in place for three years, but now we've seen it ramp," he said.

Now those same capabilities need to be brought into the x86 space, which is more complex in many ways than the high end, thanks to such aspects as the larger number of systems, van der Zweep and others said.

As virtual machines become more commonplace in the data center, the need to manage them automatically based on policies and SLAs (service-level agreements) will grow as well, said IDC analyst Vernon Turner.

And virtualization is growing. At another conference last week, Turner estimated that 80 percent of data centers are using virtualization technology. IDC, of Framingham, Mass., expects that by 2009, businesses will be spending upwards of $15 billion on virtualization technology.

In addition, server sales will continue to grow—some 14 percent or so by 2009—and the bulk of those will be smaller servers that sell for less than $3,000. That will increase the problems of data center real estate, server utilization, and cooling and power costs, all things that virtualization can address. With virtualization, more work can be done without having to buy more physical hardware and utilization will jump from 15 to 20 percent now to 40 percent or more. In addition, not adding more physical boxes will mean no additional power consumption or heat generation.

Van der Zweep said virtualization use among HP's x86 users is still in the 5 to 6 percent range, but he said that will grow, as will the demand for better management software. HP is incorporating capabilities gained through several acquisitions last year—such as the purchase of RLX Technologies for the blade server pioneer's Control Tower management suite—that will find their way into new virtualization management software, he said.

HP currently is testing some of this software with customers, and businesses could see the capabilities in products later this year, van der Zweep said. The goal is to enable users to plug in SLAs for their applications and have the software automatically provision the data center resources to meet those SLAs.

"It's the next thing," he said. "HP is bringing a bunch of that to the table."

VMware, the biggest x86 virtualization software vendor, also is moving in that direction, said Raghu Raghuram, senior director of strategy and market development for the company, which is owned by storage giant EMC.