Earlier this week I presented some survey results that Freeform Dynamics has obtained covering Virtualization for a Web seminar held on www.TheRegister.com. Whilst many of the findings were in line with my expectations, there were one or two that succeeded in raising my eyebrows.

The survey's results indicate that, overall, the vast majority of respondents (almost 80 percent) are either 'very positive' or 'positive on balance' about virtualisation. Now we have to take into account the nature of the survey which was held on The Register's web site and would naturally attract those with either experience of virtualisation or at least some interest in the area. However it does look good for virtualisation as a whole as fewer than 10 percent responded that they were either 'very negative' or 'negative on balance' and indeed it is only respondents from smaller organisations that get anywhere near to the 10 percent level of negativity.

By and large the survey highlighted that server virtualisation has really penetrated organisations of all scales with around half stating that server virtualisation is either standard or utilised in some live systems. This is hardly surprising given the huge amount of marketing and coverage that has gone into x86 Server virtualisation solutions over the past eighteen months. In fact, the very high activity that vendors such as VMware, Xensource, Microsoft and, to a lesser degree, SWsoft, have undertaken evangelising server virtualisation is probably well reflected in the overall recognition of business drivers that the solution sets help address.

However when it comes to areas such as Desktop Virtualisation and Storage Virtualisation the survey did highlight some interesting points. For example fewer than one in three respondents stated that desktop virtualisation was either standard for live systems or deployed for live systems in certain areas. When questioned further on the topic respondents stated that whilst they recognise that the solutions available could help address a wide range of business and IT challenges, they did not have enough information available to make solid business case arguments about where the deployment of desktop virtualisation solutions makes sense. Interestingly, though hardly surprising to anyone who has worked managing business desktops, over 40 percent stated that they had other more pressing issues to consider.

Now the really interesting matter concerns Storage Virtualisation where, despite well over half of respondents stating that there were either very clear or partially understood rationale to use these solutions, adoption of the solutions lags behind that of server virtualisation with fewer than one in three respondents stating that storage virtualisation was either standard for live systems or deployed in certain areas. It is my gut feeling that this result may actually be a bigger reflection of the surveyed audience rather than reality. Given the hype around server virtualisation and the fact that far more IT professionals manage servers rather than being dedicated to storage it is possible that this result is more a reflection of those taking the survey than the actual state of real world storage virtualization.

Once we get past these two fields it was interesting to note that the free text comments made by individuals concentrated on a few key subjects. Those that drew observations centred around the need for software vendors to develop much better tools for the management of virtualized systems, especially where heterogeneous platforms are deployed, be they physical or virtual; a very strong desire for application, middleware and operating systems vendors to develop licence models better suited to flexible, virtualized operations; and finally heartfelt requests that application vendors in particular recognise that virtualization is being used in live business operations and that the ISVs need to recognise this and fully support their applications in these environments.

Clearly, whilst Virtualization is currently seen as being beneficial, the software industry is being asked to make significant changes to the way it works in these environments. I believe that such changes are inevitable and that any software vendor brave enough to make take on board these requests has an opportunity to gain significant advantages, not least in garnering the thanks of end users of their software. Who will move and when could be an interesting debate to hold in the bar.