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Research findings launched today by Computacenter, Europe's leading independent provider of IT infrastructure services, reveal that organisations are missing out on the significant benefits of virtualisation deployments, with only 6% fully achieving ROI from server projects and 4% from virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). Poor planning seems partly to blame, as 39% of IT decision makers have no virtualisation strategy in place, even though 90% consider it important to help improve IT cost effectiveness.
The survey of more than 130 IT decision makers across UK enterprises in a range of industries, including banking and finance, public sector, manufacturing, retail and legal, uncovers several interesting trends:
Virtualisation misunderstood
• Respondents believe that VDI makes it easier to manage and support desktop applications, with 83% claiming it's easier to deploy and 70% believing it's easier to maintain, which is not the actually the case in most implementations. This indicates a clear need for better education on what organisations actually get out of virtualisation to ensure they achieve their objectives.
• 31% of respondents state that the complexity of virtualisation is misunderstood, whilst a third believe their organisation has taken a short term view of virtualisation to drive cost savings.
Organisations ill-equipped
• There is a stark lack of the tools needed to deliver effective virtualisation deployments, with almost a third (29%) saying they don't have sufficient end-to-end management to allow them to effectively control and monitor virtual environments.
• Almost half (41%) of IT decision makers are considering outsourcing virtual desktops to a third party supplier to bolster their in-house skills, which would enable them to reap the benefits of VDI, including increased productivity through remote working and hot desking.
Terry Walby, Director at Computacenter, comments: "It is disappointing to see so much unfulfilled potential from a technology that can vastly improve resource utilisation and business flexibility. Organisations need to change the way they think about IT and consider end-to-end virtualisation solutions that will reduce total cost of ownership and management complexity due to its centralised management."
Other notable findings from the research include:
• Great expectations
Misconceptions over the expected return on virtualisation deployments could impact adoption, as almost half of respondents expect to see ROI from server (37%) and desktop (39%) projects over the same time period (over 12 months). This indicates confusion as ROI is typically longer for desktop projects, although the indirect cost savings and avoidance of downtime more than make up for this.
• The 'Virtualisation Journey'
There appear to be clear stages in organisations' virtualisation journeys, with server virtualisation being the most widely adopted (63%), followed by virtual storage (26%), desktop virtualisation (18%) and finally virtual networking (15%). This implies that as virtualisation technology matures, a greater number of organisations adopt it and complete the 'journey'.
• For server virtualisation the next step is to tackle higher risk, more business critical functions and for VDI it is to clearly explain the benefits, such as the ability to rapidly provide tactical desktop access for offshore workers.
• Cloud Confuses Corporates
Virtualisation is considered very important by 61% of IT decision makers, whereas 50% don't know how important cloud computing is or believe it to be of little or no importance to help improve the operation and cost effectiveness of their IT environment over the next two years. This indicates that many organisations still don't have a clear strategy in place and there is a lot of confusion around cloud computing, whereas virtualisation is a much more mature market.
Walby concludes: "As organisations demand more flexibility through mobile working, it is imperative they investigate how a holistic virtualisation solution will make infrastructure more portable and ultimately sharpen their business to enhance competitive edge.
"The models for the future lie in virtualisation on demand, the cloud and self-service. And companies are already closer to these models than they think. Those, however, doing it on the cheap will find that the adoption rate is slow and the risks are high. It is much better to invest in the right tools and services now to do the job right for the specific needs of the business."
About Computacenter
Computacenter (computacenter.com) is Europe’s leading independent provider of IT infrastructure services. We advise customers on their IT strategy implement the most appropriate technology from a wide range of leading vendors and manage their technology infrastructures on their behalf. At every stage we make our customers’ businesses sharper by removing cost, complexity and barriers to change across their IT infrastructures. Our corporate and government clients are served by offices across the UK, Germany, France, the Benelux countries, Spain and South Africa. We also serve our customers’ global requirements through our extensive partner network.
For further information, please contact:
Mital Joshi / Alex Brooks, Rocket PR
E: computacenter[.]rocketcomms.net - T: 08453 707 024.
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Tessa.Freeman[.]Computacenter.com 
