Virtualizations Time to Roll

Big companies, once hesitant about virtualization, are now embracing the technology. In some cases, though, they're still waiting to see the benefit. It won't be long.

In the fledgling history of virtualization, this summer may go down as a watershed.

On the upside, two major events among leading vendors lent even more legitimacy to virtualization. First came the long-awaited initial public offering of market leader VMware on August 14. The next day, Citrix said it would acquire XenSource, an open source virtualization vendor.

The only downside: Microsoft, in the same month, said it would push back its Windows Server 2008 introduction to next February, delaying the release of new server virtualization software.

Regardless of the setback, virtualization is ready for its close-up. Deployments of server virtualization software—which allow companies to run multiple operating systems on a single, virtual machine—have grown in recent years. Forrester says 51% of North American businesses were either using or piloting virtualization software last year, up almost 10 percentage points from 2005.

Virtualizing other pieces of the IT puzzle, like applications, desktops and even hardware, are also on the rise. "Virtualization has the potential to touch every aspect of infrastructure," says Raghu Raghuram, vice president of products and solutions for VMware. "It's pretty limitless." Next Page: Alleviating Concerns