Virtual server market ramps up despite downturn

Peter Dinham
Monday, 13 April 2009 09:51

Business IT - Technology

The global ramping up of large-scale virtual server implementations is likely to drive demand for what IDC is calling a newly defined competitive market - virtual server management software – for distributed systems.

In a research report just released, IDC says that despite the economic slowdown wreaking havoc on most IT markets, the ramp up of large-scale virtual server implementations around the world will drive “tremendous demand”  for  virtual server management software for distributed systems, principally Windows, Unix, and Linux platforms.

According IDC, the worldwide distributed virtual server management software market had revenues of $871 million in 2008 and will approach $2.3 billion in 2013, which would be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.3% over the forecast period.

Mary Johnston Turner, research director, System Management Software at IDC, predicts that, in the near term, the distributed virtual server management software market will be dominated by products related to change and configuration management, including discovery, configuration, provisioning, software distribution, and change control.

"While change and configuration management will rule in the short term, performance management and event automation management capabilities will eventually take hold.  By 2012/13, distributed virtual server management capabilities will begin to blend into core systems management architectures and will no longer be viewed as a standalone competitive market, having become part of the fabric of dynamic datacentres.

In other findings from its research, IDC reveals that:
• Many customers have not yet integrated virtual and physical resource management processes or aligned virtual server management activities with IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).
• Over the next five years, the distributed virtual server management software market will evolve and mature, creating significant opportunities for new competitors and,
• A strong spirit of "coopetition" will permeate this market over the next several years.

Johnston Turner says this study -  Worldwide Distributed Virtual Server Management Software 2009-2013 Forecast: A First Look (IDC #217485) – is IDC's first sizing and forecast for this emerging competitive market.

She says that only top-line total market data is shown in the study, which specifically excludes software related to mainframe, storage, network, or desktop virtualization management, and that vendor market share data, as well as data for geographic regions, will be provided in subsequent IDC reports.