Benefits of virtualisation

Gartner’s Ken McGee and other analysts have concluded in recent weeks that the looming threat of recession may force some IT chiefs to cut their budgets for 2008 (Gartner advises IT leaders to prepare two IT budgets for 2008, 7 November). But considering the correlation between innovation, growth initiatives and the technology that fosters them, this option can prove unfeasible for many organisations.

Eliminating outdated or under-utilised IT assets may offer immediate cost relief but then how do businesses support growth? Any limit on resources will not only inhibit an IT director’s ability to implement and/or expand programmes, but put them at a disadvantage in investing in and utilising new technologies.

The ideal is to be able to do more with existing resources, and this is where application virtualisation is hotly tipped as the next big thing for IT infrastructure in 2008. By providing the tools to create a flexible, on-demand infrastructure that intelligently provisions processing power as and when it is required across the entire organisation, application virtualisation quite simply enables IT chiefs to do more with less.

Alun Baker, DataSynapse