SMBs Adopting Virtualization with Success

VDI Adoption Gains SMB Momentum

As part of its marketing strategy, VMware provides customer success stories on its website for other customers and potential partners to read about other organizations that found success using VMware’s products. This year, VMware took it a step further by putting four small to midsize business customers in the spotlight at its VMworld 2013 conference.

The size and scope of the projects these organizations took on varied, but the key thing they had in common was the use of virtualization technology. According to research by SpiceWorks (registration required for download), 72 percent of surveyed SMBs said they currently use server virtualization, and 80 percent plan to be using server virtualization before the year’s end.

Although perhaps the motivation for SMBs to adopt virtual technology had slowed, it seems to be picking up steam once again with newfound funding. The study also found that most SMB IT budgets are increasing, with organizations with less than 250 employees finding the greatest increases in IT spending. Businesses with 250 to 999 employees reported a decline in IT spending; however, overall IT budgets for SMBs are growing for companies in North America.

It seems that SMBs on the larger end of the spectrum are leading the way in virtualization, with 81 percent of companies with 250 to 999 employees currently invested in the technology, and 87 percent saying they plan to be using the technology within six months.

The study also showed a huge variety in the types of workloads organizations are virtualizing. The largest percentage, 76 percent, of respondents currently virtualize IT services such as storage and printing. Around 56 percent are virtualizing industry-specific applications and another 49 percent use virtualization for content publishing such as blogging, knowledge bases or streaming content.

SpiceWorks also predicts that workloads of all types will be virtualized at an increased rate within the next six months and that “server virtualization has still not reached its peak.” According to the study:

Server virtualization adoption continues its upward trend, jumping seven percentage points since the second half of 2012—from 65% to 72%. What’s more, and additional 8% of respondents are planning to implement server virtualization within the next six months, which could bring the adoption total to 80%.

Is your organization going to be part of the big move toward virtualization? Perhaps now is the time to consider creating a virtualization plan.