Over 20% of virtualisation projects in the UK will fail to reach the storage
stage, according to a study of IT decision makers, commissioned by data storage
and management specialist NetApp. Whilst 70% of respondents state that they will be
investing in server virtualisation, only 55% intend to invest in storage
virtualization.
The study, which canvassed the
opinion of 200 IT professionals, found that those in retail, distribution and
transport were most likely to virtualise both server and storage with a
difference of 6%, enabling their business to be future ready. This is compared
to those in manufacturing where the gap was over 40%.
Efficiency and productivity are
key drivers in this year's IT departments for 76% of respondents. On average 58%
of IT decision makers said that they anticipated dealing with budget cuts with
91% of those working in the public sector.
Jeremy Wallis, Systems Engineering
Director, NetApp said: "As IT departments respond to pressure to do more with
less, we will see an increase in virtualisation projects. The drive for
efficiency is clearly relentless for many IT decision makers, however it is
surprising that storage virtualisation seems to be being overlooked for one in
five respondents. This is perhaps an opportunity for end users and also the
channel, as resellers and systems integrators can support those looking to
achieve greater efficiencies without compromising on performance or business
agility."
United Biscuits, the
manufacturer of brands such as Hula Hoops and McCoys crisps is a business built
on NetApp. It faced exactly this challenge. Steve Summersgill, Technical
Services Manager, United Biscuits said, "We needed a storage solution that would
support an increasingly virtualised environment and provide simultaneous backup
and instant failover. NetApp offered a solution that could integrate into our
current SAN environment providing additional flexible infrastructure storage."