Server virtualization still not a reality in several data centres

BANGALORE, INDIA: While the use of virtual machines in data centers continues to grow, many servers are not yet virtualized, as per market research firm Infonetics Research.

"Server virtualization has been the focus of the data centre industry for several years now, and the largest data centre owners and internet content providers like Google are ubiquitously exploiting virtual machines," notes Michael Howard, principal analyst, carrier networks and co-founder, Infonetics Research. "Yet, the reality is the bulk of data centre owners are more pedestrian in their deployments, finding it more operationally convenient to leave many areas of their data centres alone, using server virtualization for only select applications."

"However, to be sure, data center owners want to increase the value of their existing data centre assets - no matter the extent of server virtualization - as a means to increase revenue via cloud services, both to keep their current customers satisfied and to attract new customers," adds Howard.

More operators than anticipated plan to continue investing in fibre channel for their data centres, even in the face of growing usage of the newer fibre channel over Ethernet (FCoE).

The number of data centre server LAN connections is growing quickly, with 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections growing the most. The average capacity of a data centre WAN connection is expected to increase more than twofold from 2012 to 2014.