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Research and advisory firm Gartner have released the latest update to their x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure ‘Magic Quadrant’ report. This ‘Magic Quadrant’ provides a graphical representation of the x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure market for a period of time that the report covers along with a written commentary. It looks at the particular industry and provides analysis based on evaluation criteria, defined by Gartner, for that particular market or sector.
The location on the ‘Magic Quadrant’ that companies, in most instances, want to find themselves is in the top right ‘Leaders’ part of the quadrant. Where a company is located in a part of this quadrant reflects their overall leadership, taking into account ‘completeness of vision’ and ‘ability to execute’ in the marketplace. So it’s with little surprise that this latest (June 2011) installment of the x86 virtualization Magic Quadrant sees VMware leading the way in market leadership, but with also Microsoft and Citrix have joining them in the ‘Leaders’ quadrant for the first time.
As this report from Gartner points out, and as no doubt you are aware, virtualization is seeing a significant update in adoption in both IT infrastructure refresh/modernization and cloud computing with, “as of mid-2011, at least 40% of x86 architecture workloads have been virtualized on servers; furthermore, the installed base is expected to grow five-fold from 2010 through 2015 (as both the number of workloads in the marketplace grow and as penetration grows to more than 75%).”.
I recommend taking a look at Gartner’s report as it makes for an interesting read where they provide further insight into their view on movement and developments in the x86 server virtualization space.