Virtual Iron Software (www.virtualiron.com), a provider of enterprise-class software for server virtualization and virtual infrastructure management, today launched a new research survey aimed at defining the emerging IT infrastructure needs of hosted service providers. The brief survey, available online here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Cpjf7jAFhNOAL7GtfQde6Q_3d_3d, focuses on the data center needs of hosted service providers and the potential role of server virtualization in their environments. To encourage participation, Virtual Iron is entering all respondents in a drawing for a new Apple iPhone.

Hosted services businesses have unique IT infrastructure requirements -- managing hundreds -- if not thousands -- of different customer environments. They need to cost-effectively deliver increasingly high service levels in a utility computing model. To be successful they must:

--  Share computing infrastructure across multiple customers while delivering all the security, isolation and performance of a dedicated environment.
--  Expand and differentiate service offerings while meeting stringent service level requirements.
--  Address problems associated with under-utilized capacity or under-sized hardware and manage hardware outages.
--  Simplify system management and reduce high operational costs caused by a complex data center infrastructure.
    

This survey examines hosted service providers' needs in these areas and the role server virtualization might play in addressing them by reducing data center operational costs, increasing management flexibility and improving service levels. Readers can access it at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Cpjf7jAFhNOAL7GtfQde6Q_3d_3d. Participants should be involved with at least one of the following business types:

--  Website hosting
--  Application hosting, software as a service
--  Outsourced servers (shared or dedicated environments)
    

Virtual Iron will publish the findings of these results and make them available for download at http://www.virtualiron.com at the conclusion of this project.