Clouds Rise as Virtualisation Tops IT Investment 2010
LONDON, UK. 23 February
2010: A survey conducted by data management and storage
vendor NetApp has revealed that overwhelmingly virtualisation (70%)
is the top priority for IT investment in 2010, and that awareness
of cloud computing is on the rise. The majority of IT professionals
(74%) now claim to have partial understanding of cloud storage,
placing the technology firmly on the IT and business agenda.
The survey of more than 100 professionals
revealed cost savings (22%) and a pay-as-you-go model (23%) as the
most appealing benefits of cloud storage, as well as perceived
security (29%) and integration (22%) issues as the biggest barriers
to adoption.
"What this tells us is that cloud is here and
top of mind for businesses," said Dave Allen, UK MD, NetApp. "Just
as virtualisation has gone full circle from an abstract concept to
a technology that more than 70% of IT professionals plan to
implement this year, we will see cloud follow the same pattern over
2010. The basic knowledge foundations have been laid, the next step
is for businesses to overcome barriers and understand exactly how
cloud could work for specific data and applications.
"As server and storage virtualisation gains
speed and momentum over 2010, we can expect to see more businesses
also virtualise the network and move further towards a unified
computing model. From a unified core, IT professionals will find it
to easier to launch both internal and external clouds that deliver
a lower cost of ownership and save the business money.
"At NetApp, our goal is to continue to build
strong alliances with technology leaders to deliver customers fully
unified solutions from the start," he said.
In January, NetApp launched a Secure
Multi-tenancy Design Architecture for the cloud as well as an open
design architecture to help customers quickly build unified,
virtualised infrastructures.
About NetApp
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that accelerate business breakthroughs and achieve outstanding cost
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