Oracle User Group Reveals Key Virtualisation Problems

Results of a survey on virtualisation practices released on 14 April by the Independent Oracle Users Group didn’t unearth a lot of new information, but it did put the spotlight squarely on where the main problems lie when it comes to virtualizing an IT system.

The survey of 381 enterprise data center decision makers supported already well-known ideas about the continual increase in structured and unstructured enterprise data and that virtualised systems invariably save time, power and money once they’re deployed. 

However, respondents also revealed where the thorniest issues lie in transforming an older data centre or building a new one.

“Virtualisation has become a significant asset for IT, reducing time and cost of deploying new servers. However, the greatest challenge has been resistance from software venders [reluctant] to support their applications on virtualised servers,” one respondent said.

 “I certainly believe that IT virtualisation makes it easy to manage databases more efficiently and effectively,” wrote another respondent.

“However, we need to convince our top management—the decision-making point—with return on investment, the cost savings in hardware and [reduced] administration costs.”

Finding good people with the right skills for the new generation of systems is another recurring problem, according to the report.

Organisational challenges increasingly arise as participants plan to implement various virtualisation strategies, analyst Joseph McKendrick wrote in his executive summary. 

”Three out of four respondents say tight budgets are [the] greatest issue their IT operation currently faces. Even when the economy improves and budgets do get more flush, there will still be challenges facing IT and data managers. 

”Even at a time when hiring is slow, more than four out of 10 say they can’t find the right skills to address their current requirements,” McKendrick wrote.

Respondents discussed and provided feedback on a variety of issues, ranging from cost savings to organisational adaptation. The survey found that most organisations have put some kind of server virtualisation into operation—whether in testing or production—and about half are considering database virtualisation to increase the value of their data infrastructure.

Database instances skyrocketing

Other highlights from the IOUG report:

—About 80 percent reported that the number of database instances within or across their companies have increased over the past year.
—Traditional Unix is still a strong choice of architecture for respondents, but many are moving to x86-type commodity platforms.
—Respondents who are embracing high levels of virtualization are more likely to be expanding their production database environments.
—Virtualization is more prevalent in data development environments than production settings. About half of respondents were able to increase development database deployments with virtualization.

“Organizations are relying on the quality and availability of data to better compete on analytics in the global economy,” IOUG president Ian Abramson said. “But this study confirms tight budgets and skills constraints are putting the squeeze on managing the situation. Three out of four respondents say this is the greatest issue their IT operation currently faces.”

IOUG offers resources and education for Oracle technologists covering enterprise platforms. The next opportunity will be multiple virtualization sessions at the Collaborate10 IOUG Forum, scheduled for 18 to 21 April in Las Vegas. 

At that event IOUG will offer attendees information about topics such as VMware, Sun Microsystems virtualization, virtualised environments, business intelligence, databases, security and aligning IT with business.

The survey, “Toward a Smarter Information Foundation: 2010 IOUG Enterprise Platform Decisions Survey,” was conducted for the IOUG by Unisphere Research in November 2009 and was sponsored by Oracle.

The data is a result of 381 responses that were collected from IOUG’s members. 

The complete 31-page survey and executive summary are available to all members of the IOUG at this site.