TheInfoPro (TIP) (www.theinfopro.net) has released the Time Series Report from Wave 4 of their Server Study, based on 137 hour-long interviews with pre-screened Server professionals from Fortune 1000 and midsize enterprises (MSE). According to the study, over 40% of Server professionals report that only 10% of their production environment was virtualized by year-end 2006. Over three-quarters of those same users believe that more than 25% of production applications will be virtualized by 2009. In fact, nearly half of all Server professionals in the TIPNetwork indicate that more than 50% of their production environment will run in a virtualized space by 2009.

To view a rich media presentation of findings visit: http://www.brainshark.com/theinfopro/Wave4_virtualization

“User perception of the functionality and robustness of Server Virtualization products such as VMware has shifted dramatically over the past two years. A hallmark of TIP’s research methodology is that our studies are conducted in six month intervals or ‘Waves’. For example, in 2004 when Wave 1 was published, Virtualization attracted a great deal of attention. However, most in-use applications were restricted to application development and testing, and in a few cases, selected infrastructure applications. Now, in 2007, Wave 4 shows that over 80% of end users regard virtualized servers as the next enterprise IT application deployment platform,” said Bob Gill, Managing Director of TheInfoPro’s Server Sector.

While products such as Microsoft Virtual Server, IBM LPAR, HP VPAR, and Linux-based Xen all received mentions, when asked about virtualization the majority of user responses were attributed to VMware. VMware’s market dominance continues to grow, with nearly all users reporting virtual machine software in their adoption plans, citing EMC as their lead in-plan vendor. User concerns about this move to virtualization do not come without risks or concerns, however. “What is clear is that users are uneasy about the lack of management tools, and the operational realities of virtualizing critical applications,” added Gill.

In TheInfoPro’s recently released Server Time Series Report, the percentage of users citing “performance under load” as their greatest concern has risen from 19% to 40%. Server professionals also report that they are struggling to decide which applications to co-locate on consolidated servers.

TheInfoPro’s Wave 4 Server Study details technology adoption trends and timeframes, management techniques and trends, vendor performance data as well as management strategies for the Server sector. Companies covered in the Wave 4 Server Study include Microsoft, HP, IBM, Dell, Cisco, Sun, EMC / VMware, QLogic, APC, Brocade, NetApp, Emulex, AMD, Intel, ,Blade Networks, Juniper, Avocent, Rackable Systems, Red Hat, Novell, Nortel, HDS, Egenera, Cyclades, MPC, Gateway, Alacritech, Penguin, PlateSpin, and XenSource.