Along with saving money whenever possible, saving time is a major goal for every organization. After all, the time you save could be spent strategizing and increasing profits. Here are some of the technologies expected to be major time-savers in 2008:

...

Consolidation/virtualization. Both server and data center consolidation, usually via virtualization solutions like those provided by VMware, is a major time-saving trend. "Organizations save significant time on new system deployments when servers are deployed as virtual machines," notes Chris Wolf, senior analyst at Burton Group. "And administrators can perform maintenance during normal business hours instead of having to reserve a time over the weekend."

Virtual lab automation software like VMware Lab Manager also is a major time-saving technology. Lab Manager provides self-service provisioning of virtual resources, so users in need of a test system can deploy it themselves in a matter of minutes. Lab Manager also allows users to share their virtual environments with other users.

Storage consolidation, enabled by data deduplication technologies, also cuts time significantly, while improving power consumption and cooling management.

Read the entire eWeek article, here.