What are the market drivers for virtualization and cloud computing?

November 18, 2009 -- Everyone is on board the virtualization train and it seems IT vendors are slapping the "cloud" tag on every storage platform and service they come up with, but what drives the end user towards virtualization and cloud storage?

Recent research from IT automation specialist Shavlik Technologies outlines the market drivers behind virtualization and cloud computing initiatives. Shavlik conducted a survey of more than 290 IT pros and the results reveal that data, server and licensing consolidation and disaster recovery functionality are the leading drivers behind new investments in virtualization technology.

According to Shavlik, an overwhelming 93% of IT organizations are using virtual machine technology. Seventy-five percent of those organizations have more than half of their production servers as virtual machines.

Fifty-three percent of survey respondents say server and licensing consolidation is the driving force behind their virtualization deployments, while backup ranked as the second major driver, reported by 52% of those polled.

The principal lure of cloud computing seems to be TCO. The survey revealed that the reduced IT costs associated with cloud computing is the principal reason IT managers are turning to the cloud for the delivery of IT services.

Cloud computing is being examined for adoption by 58 percent of survey respondents, according to the Shavlik research.