The status and suggestions of enterprise migration to virtualization and cloud computing

Symantec Company today unveiled its "2011 Virtualization and Cloud Computing Evolution Survey," the main content. The survey showed that there is a gap between the actual and expected objectives of the enterprise's deployment of these solutions, and the business chief Executive (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) have misgivings about moving critical business applications to virtualization or cloud environments due to challenges in terms of reliability, security, availability, and performance.

Symantec Inc. today unveiled its main contents of the 2011 Virtualization and Cloud Computing Evolution survey. The survey showed that there is a gap between the actual and expected objectives of the enterprise's deployment of these solutions, and the business chief Executive (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) have misgivings about moving critical business applications to virtualization or cloud environments due to challenges in terms of reliability, security, availability, and performance.

Symantec "Virtualization and Cloud Computing Evolution Survey" by Applied Research in April 2011, the respondents are mainly in charge of computer, network and technology business, IT personnel and enterprise senior management, the unit is divided into small (1000-2400 employees), medium-sized ( The number of employees 2500-4999 people, large (more than 5000 employees) enterprise three categories. The purpose of the survey is to understand how businesses move key business applications to virtual and hybrid cloud computing environments. More than 3,700 respondents were from 35 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

The survey, conducted by applied research in April 2011, is mainly for IT professionals and business executives responsible for computers, networks and technology. More than 3,700 companies from 35 countries in the world participated in the survey. The main purpose of the survey is to study how the business moves key business to virtualized and mixed cloud environments, with a focus on servers, clients, storage virtualization, storage as services (Storage-as-a-service), hybrid cloud/private cloud technology, etc.

"Cloud computing represents a huge shift in the IT world from traditional it delivery to service delivery patterns," said John Magee, vice president of John Meg and cloud computing solutions. For many enterprises, entering the cloud era is a complex evolution, and it is important that it and enterprise managers should be in step with the initiative. Virtualization enables private cloud and hybrid cloud applications to be implemented, and our findings suggest that a seamless transfer plan is essential to achieve the simplicity, affordability, and efficiency that such environments provide. ”

Symantec "Virtualization and Cloud Computing Evolution Survey" found that at present, the current situation of enterprise to virtualization and cloud computing can be summarized as three points: first, there is a gap between the expected target and the actual effect; second, virtualization and cloud computing apply to more critical business areas; Thirdly, the quality of service becomes the main challenge of application. It and business executives have a different view of these technologies.

The gap between reality and expectation reflects market evolution

Server virtualization technology is widely used and more than 75% of companies are talking about private cloud and hybrid cloud deployments. Server and storage virtualization is the most mature technology in this survey, with businesses using both technologies accounting for 45% and 43% respectively. Private storage, the development of services, is lagging behind, with only 36% of enterprises using it.

Early investment experience has shown that there is a gap between the actual and expected goals of these new technologies, and that companies are still exploring what these technologies can bring and how to overcome the new challenges they pose. The survey asked respondents about the initial goals of deploying servers, storage, terminal virtualization, private storage as services, mixed cloud/private cloud technologies, and asked respondents who had applied the technology to achieve the final goals. The deviation of the two answers reflects the gap between reality and expectation.

Server virtualization appears to be the most successful, with an average gap of 4% between the expected target and the actual effect. In terms of scalability, reduced capital expenditure and reduced operating expenditure, the gap between the expected target and the actual situation is greatest.

In storage virtualization, the gap between the expected goal and the actual effect is 33%, disappointing to the user that the system is underperforming in terms of flexibility, scalability, and reduced operating expenses.

For terminal/Desktop virtualization, the difference between the respondents ' expected target and the actual effect was 26%. Respondents expressed disappointment with the deployment of new terminals, application delivery and application compatibility.

77% of businesses are considering using private storage as a service, but the implementation of these projects is challenging and the gap with the expected target is 37%. For example, 84% of respondents hoped that complexity would be reduced, but only 44% would eventually reach their expectations.

The gap between such expected goals and actual results is characteristic of early markets. As the market for virtualization and cloud computing matures, we hope that these gaps will gradually shrink.

Focus on key business applications

All businesses investing in virtualization and mixed cloud/private cloud technologies tend to follow similar approaches, that is, start virtualization from less important areas of application, such as testing and development environments and processes, and then step into more important areas of application such as messaging systems and collaboration, business processes, e-commerce and supply chains, enterprise resource planning ( ERP)/Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Based on the results of this survey, companies are gradually applying virtualization technology to key business applications. More than half of the companies that are applying virtualization Technology (59%) plan to introduce virtualization technology into database applications within the next year. 55% of Enterprises plan to introduce virtualization technology to network applications, 47% of enterprises plan to introduce virtualization technology to mail and calendar applications, while 41% of enterprises plan to introduce virtualization technology into ERP.

We found that companies were slower to apply hybrid cloud/private cloud technology to key businesses. On average, only 33% of critical business applications, such as ERP, accounting, and CRM, enter a mixed cloud/private cloud environment. Respondents were concerned about problems such as accounts, services or traffic hijacking, as well as authentication vulnerabilities, access vulnerabilities, disaster recovery, and encryption.

Quality of service as the first challenge

With the wide application of virtualization technology and private cloud technology, there is a growing concern about the cost of storage and its system performance. More than half (56%) of respondents said that the cost of storage in a server virtualization environment was somewhat or largely increased. For organizations that are in storage virtualization, the most important three reasons to choose deployment virtualization include lower operating costs (55%), increased storage performance (54%), and improved disaster recovery readiness (53%).

Of the enterprises that have adopted server virtualization technology, 76% per cent believe that security is a more important/important factor in preventing people from safely placing critical business applications on virtual servers. 63% of respondents considered security to be an important/critical challenge in applying server virtualization technologies.

In addition, system performance is one of the factors that most enterprises attach importance to. Of all the companies that have adopted server virtualization technology, 76% per cent believe that system performance is a more important/critical factor in preventing people from safely placing critical business applications on virtual servers. Of all the respondents who have adopted mixed/private cloud computing, 72% per cent of the companies consider system performance to be an important/critical challenge.

In the enterprise that has adopted server virtualization technology, System reliability is the most concerned factor. 78% of companies say system reliability is a more important/critical factor in preventing people from safely putting critical tasks to the virtualization server. In those enterprises that have adopted information storage virtualization technology, 83% of the enterprises believe that the system is functioning properly and system availability is an important goal.

It and business executives have different views on these technologies

According to the findings, 46% of all CFOs applying hybrid cloud/private cloud technology are not inclined to place critical business applications in these cloud environments. 44% of CEOs are cautious.

The respondents ' concerns about virtualization and the deployment of hybrid cloud technologies focused on system reliability (78%), Security (76%), and Performance (76%) three.

In fact, corporate executives ' concerns are different from those of it. For example, as far as executives are concerned, they consider system performance to be the most worrisome, while 78% to 85% of respondents to the server virtualization technology believe that performance is expected.

Symantec's recommendations

The enterprise IT environment faces great challenges in the process of evolution of cloud computing environment, but it also contains opportunities. Even with the application of this new technology, the vast majority of companies are still deploying virtualization technology and will be using cloud computing technology in the near future. For these companies, Symantec offers the following recommendations to make the entire evolution process smoother.

Ensure that it and enterprise managers are in sync with virtualization and cloud computing: It is important to eliminate concerns about security and ease of use among enterprise executives. The concerns of business executives are important, but they can be proven by leveraging existing best practices and sophisticated solutions to enable valuable information and critical applications of the enterprise to be protected and highly leveraged.

Don't do it alone when you deploy cloud computing: When virtualization and cloud computing are deployed as mainstream, integrated IT solutions, you can achieve maximum success. Because they are the consolidation of all it technologies (such as servers, storage, networking, software, and so on), managing them as a single "special project" can lead to failure. Instead, cloud computing should be seen as a broad it integrated deployment, and its planning and execution should involve the entire enterprise sector.

Make the most of your existing infrastructure and modernize it: Before you are ready to deploy a hybrid cloud/private cloud technology, you should verify that the use of existing equipment achieves the same operational efficiencies, and that it should be modernized if necessary. Transfer the original static server, storage, and network to a virtual resource pool. Use self-service configurations to replace the original static configuration and ensure that they are monitored and measured to demonstrate the value of these technologies to the enterprise.

Set realistic operational goals and track running results: Don't forget, though, that cloud computing is still a new thing, and its market is still maturing. According to their own situation to establish practical goals, and then the operation of the tracking observation to find a way to improve the efficiency of program operation.

About Symantec "Virtualization and Cloud Computing Evolution survey"

Symantec "Virtualization and Cloud Computing Evolution Survey" by Applied Research in April 2011, the respondents are mainly in charge of computer, network and technology business, IT personnel and enterprise senior management, the unit is divided into small (1000-2400 employees), medium-sized ( The number of employees 2500-4999 people, large (more than 5000 employees) enterprise three categories. The purpose of the survey is to understand how businesses move key business applications to virtual and hybrid cloud computing environments. More than 3,700 respondents were from 35 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

(Responsible editor: admin)