virtualisation conference

50% of french companies have already implemented a virtualisation project
On November 5, a renowed French IT publication hosted a conference on virtualisation at the Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme. Participants heard more about the current state of virtualisation and how businesses are using it, including the results from a survey of more than 5,000 French companies. While we wait for the official presentation to be published, here's a sneak peek at the major themes covered.

Where we're headed
  • About 50% of companies have already implemented a virtualisation project or plan to in the next 12 months.
  • Around 30% of the future projects covered in the study deal with servers, while 75% focus on workstations.

Where we've been
  • CIOs are aware of--and using--server virtualisation: 68% of the companies surveyed had virtualised 40% of their servers and 22% had virtualised 80% of their servers.
  • VDI companies are an exception: more than 86% of the VDI companies surveyed had brought virtualisation to less than 20% of their customer base on the PC side.
  • CIOs are highly involved in the decision to virtualise, often acting as the project's primary champion.
  • Only 17% of respondents with completed virtualisation projects had calculated their post-project ROI! About 30% calculated ROI before the project began and another 30% had never done the calculation.

Why bother with virtualisation?
  • Reduces material costs
  • Establishes Business Continuity Plan (BCP)/Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)
  • Helps consolidate and optimise infrastructure use
  • Increases flexibility
  • Simplifies administration

Helping virtualisation
  • Simplification, quick installation of machines
  • Lower rate of system breakdowns

Hurting virtualisation
  • Lack of internal skills
  • Fees (licences)
  • Fear that sensitive software will no longer work

When it comes to choosing integrators, companies appear to be basing their decision on consulting expertise--not size and rates as one might expect.

Although these survey results cover only part of the French landscape, they nonetheless offer valuable insight into current trends in virtualisation.
 
 
Patrice Boukobza
Aujourd'hui consultant en virtualisation, et cela depuis plus de 12 ans avec une forte expérience des grands comptes, Patrice a commencé l'informatique au siècle dernier, quand internet n'existait pas encore et que les premiers réseaux de PC commençaient à voir le jour. Il a vu l'avènement de ces PC et de Microsoft en entreprise puis chez les particuliers, et a connecté les premiers modems pour surfer sur internet. 
Il garde un souvenir suranné des années "internet" avec le fameux bug de l'an 2000 où il a fait partie des équipes luttant contre cette crise potentielle, comme 10 ans plus tard il fût acteur sur le sujet de la pandémie H1N1.
Habitué des blogs (il en possède 3 personnels), il est un des contributeurs principaux du blog virtualisation d'Orange.