Proximal Data, the leading provider of server-side caching solutions for virtualized environments, today announced results of a survey conducted at VMworld 2012, which showed that 95% of the respondents rated virtual machine (VM) density as “Important” to “Very Important.” The survey results validate the need for a fast virtual cache solution such as AutoCache, Proximal Data’s software for increasing VM density in virtualized servers.

During the VMworld exhibition from August 27 – 29 2012, 173 attendees were surveyed on a set of questions related to problems and requirements for solutions in their virtualized server and storage environments. When asked if they had tried a flash device to improve their ability to add VMs, only 23% of respondents said “Yes,” however, 74% of those who responded positively said that flash devices “did not work on the VM density issues as expected.” Regarding maintaining guest operating system agents to address the VM density problems, 74% said agents pose a moderate to a “Huge Problem.” These results confirm that flash devices need the assistance of a virtual cache solution and should not require additional guest OS agents that need to be maintained or updated on a regular basis.

In response to questions about the importance of a solution having VMware compatibility and integration, and being non-disruptive to IT operations, 95% of the respondents said VMware compatibility is “Important” to “Very Important” and 91% said integration with VMware vSphere and vCenter is also of the highest importance. Not surprisingly, 98% cited no operational disruption as being an “Important” to “Very Important” feature. This reinforces the requirement for complete transparency when introducing a virtual caching solution, such as Proximal Data’s AutoCache, which works within VMware ESXi, is supported within vSphere and vCenter environments and requires no agents.

“This survey confirmed the extent of the problems enterprises have with scaling their virtualized environments,” said Rory Bolt, CEO of Proximal Data. “We built AutoCache from the ground up to solve the VM density problem and drove to deliver a revolutionary solution in virtualized server optimization that provides enterprises with powerful levels of VM density, efficiency and performance.”

Proximal Data’s recently announced AutoCache software works seamlessly within a hypervisor, such as VMware ESXi, to increase VM density up to three times without impacting IT operations or requiring agents in guest operating systems. AutoCache places hot I/O onto a PCIe flash card or solid state device (SSD) to intelligently supply priority data traffic to all VMs. By removing the I/O bottleneck, VM density can be increased and efficiency is improved while minimizing system resource usage. This frees up CPU capacity to support more business applications, delivering substantial savings in total cost of ownership. AutoCache is also integrated within VMware management environments (vCenter, vSphere) and does not impact processes such as vMotion.