Virtualisation rises despite security concerns

June 22, 2007: 50 percent of IT professionals in the UK are either using or seriously considering virtualisation technologies, even though security fears are rampant as the same percentage believes the technology could introduce some new security challenges.

The results came as the result of the UK based ‘RapidResearch Quarterly IT Survey’ in which 300 IT directors, managers and system engineers were questions over the adoption of virtualisation.

But although 52 percent of respondents believe virtualiasation systems could introduce some new security challenges, system vulnerability was not the number one obstacle standing in front of the non-adopters. The main concerns ranged from ROI, project priorities and budget with 20 percent stating a lack of compelling business case for the spend, 19 percent stating the priority for other projects, 18 percent listing insufficient staff expertise and 9 percent declaring security as the primary obstacle.

Overall, these are obstacles most respondents said could be internally overcome though staff training , patching/updating and hardening services, firewalls and the separation of networks.

64 percent of respondents listing server and physical space consolidation as reasons for the push for virtualisation adoption while 54 percent listed disaster recovery and 49 percent stated the reduced cost of ownership.

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