Virtualisation technology is gaining ground among Indian enterprises as companies get more and more conscious about their IT deployments. Virtualisation, the creation of a virtual version of an operating system, a server, a storage device or network resources, is expected to double its share by 2008 end.
“Virtualisation is expected to gain ground among enterprises and is expected to double from its current 22% to 45% by 2008-end,” commented an industry expert. Experts feel that it’s the sectors like BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), telecom, retail and government, which will act as the main drivers for virtualisation technology in India.
“Our clients for this technology are the major players in the BFSI, telecom and the government sector,” said Basant Rajan, chief technology officer, Symantec, India. The common theme of all virtualization technologies is the hiding of technical detail, through encapsulation. Virtualisation creates an external interface that hides an underlying implementation by combining resources at different physical locations, or by simplifying a control system.
“Virtualisation increases and improves utilisation. One of the reasons why virtualisation is gaining momentum in India is because enterprises are realising that by adapting this technology, the IT spend of a company goes down,” said Rajan. “This technology is useful when there are large data and large servers to be managed. Though at present the adaptation rate in India is low, it’s gradually gaining momentum as Indian CIOs are as cost conscious as their Western counterparts,” he added. Adaptation rate of virtualisation in India is expected to see a growth of 85% by 2011 from the current 19%. Symantec, one of the largest service providers, feels that in adapting this technology, Indian companies still lag behind their Western counterparts. Globally, it is expected that by 2011, the number of virtual PCs will grow to 660 million, from its present number, which is less than 5 million.
“Riding on the success of server virtualization, storage virtualisation is also coming of age in India,” commented an industry analyst.
With the gradual increasing popularity of virtualisation, it is expected that the APAC market share of the technology will reach $1.35 billion with a CAGR of 42% by 2010.