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V-Index: Measuring Virtualization Technology's Reach

Getting data on virtualization technology usage can be hard to come by, but here's some good news: A quarterly industry survey of 500 enterprises called the V-Index has just been launched.

Commissioned by Veeam , a virtual infrastructure management company, the V-Index will track three key parameters: virtualization rate, consolidation ratio and primary hypervisor use, in businesses based in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. (Surprisingly, there's no attempt to shed any light on the use of private of hybrid cloud technology. It's a shame, but then you can't have everything.) The first set of data is out now, and some of it makes very interesting reading, indeed.

The virtualization penetration rate -- the proportion of the servers in all the enterprises that are virtual servers -- is 39.4 percent. That's not a huge surprise, as it's roughly in line with recent estimated published by VMware and Gartner. But here's something unexpected: While the English speakers -- the United States and United Kingdom -- are at 37.2 percent and 35.7 percent, respectively, it's noticeable that French and German enterprises have significantly higher penetration rates of 45.5 percent and 45.1 percent, respectively.

Moving on to the consolidation ratio -- the number of virtual machines in an enterprise divided by the number of physical hosts -- the average is 6.3. Physical hosts generally support about 6 guests, in other words. But what's illuminating is the figure that the surveyors got when they asked the enterprises concerned what they thought their consolidation rates were. The estimates are consistently higher than the actual figures, with an average perceived consolidation ratio of 9:8. That means companies believe they are getting consolidation ratios more than 50 percent higher than the ratios they are actually achieving. The worst offenders are the French, which have the lowest actual consolidation ratio (5.8 percent), while perceiving that they have the highest (11.3 percent). But before we laugh too much at our poor, deluded cheese-chomping friends, U.S.-based enterprises are almost as bad, achieving 6.0 percent but believing they have achieved 11.2 percent.

"One reason for this over-estimation may be that companies want to believe they are getting a better consolidation ratio than they are because then they can convince themselves that they are getting a better return on investment," said Ratmir Timashev, Veeam's president and CEO. "Another reason may be that they don't have good management tools to keep track of the virtual machines that they are actually using.

The ROI Series: Calculating the ROI of a Technology Investment ...

And they may not be as expensive as you think when you consider their return on investment (ROI). In this four-part series, we’ll explain what ROI is, help you understand indirect ROI, and provide guidelines for predicting and measuring the ROI of a technology investment.

Part 4: Measuring ROI

If you’ve been following this series, you’ve already learned what ROI is and how you can use it to make sure your technology implementations are profitable. But the process doesn’t stop there: it’s important, once you’ve implemented a new technology solution, to track its benefits.

There are many direct and indirect benefits of implementing new technology, as we’ve described — but in most cases, companies don’t know what they are.