Virtualisation adopters cautious of threats

Virtualisation is moving into the mainstream with 50 per cent of IT professionals already using this new technology, or planning to do so within the next 18 months, according to a new survey.

The survey, conducted by email research specialists, emedia focused on adoption of virtualisation indicates that over half (52 per cent) of respondents are saying these systems introduce some new security challenges.

The security concerns amongst those mentioned by the 278 senior UK IT directors, managers and system engineers include consideration for patching and update (32 per cent), guest-to-guest attacks (27 per cent) and the addition of new host software (22 per cent).

Also the later the implementation of the technology is scheduled for, the more apprehensive IT professionals seems to be. The research shows that 51 per cent of current users think that virtualisation poses some new risks, rising to 57 per cent amongst those planning to use the new solution within the next six months and 66 per cent amongst those adopting it within the next six to 18 months.

But system vulnerability does not seem to be the main hurdle for non-adopters at that stage. Obstacles to virtualisation expansion for non-users include the lack of a compelling business case for total cost of ownership and return on investment (20 per cent), priority given to other network upgrade projects (19 per cent), cost/budget constraints (18 per cent), insufficient staff expertise (15 per cent) and security (nine per cent).

IT professionals believe they can overcome these threats by taking various safety measures such as staff training and improving understanding (51 per cent), patching, updating and 'hardening' servers (38 per cent), using firewalls (30 per cent) and separating networks, subnetting and routing (25 per cent).

When purchasing a virtualisation solution, the most important criteria respondents look for are server or physical space consolidation (64 per cent), disaster recovery (54 per cent), reduced cost of ownership (49 per cent), speed performance (48 per cent) and ease of use (43 per cent).

David Clark, emedia managing director said: "The advantages of virtualisation appear to be tantalising but it seems that IT managers approach it with caution."

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