Virtualisation and Business Continuity

The benefits of server virtualisation are transforming the way IT departments provision IT to their customers. If the first wave of x86 virtualisation was mostly focused on improvements in utilisation, then IDC believes that the second major wave will focus on the enhancement of business continuity and DR capability. Virtualisation offers to bring significantly improved BC practices to a broader spectrum of IT environments, IDC advises companies that evaluate BC plans involving virtualisation to draw up a roadmap that envisions the potential effects of a wide virtualisation of their x86 installed base, while at the same time taking into account the necessary interaction between the virtualised and non-virtualised environments, in terms of both system management and of common governance policies.