Report: States ahead of local governments in implementing virtualization
States are more likely than local governments to implement virtualization — the division of a server into several subsystems — and are happier with their chief information officers’ (CIOs) proficiency with virtualization technology, according to Vernon Hills, Ill.-based CDW Government (CDW-G). CDW-G’s comparison between state and local governments also found that they share many of the same difficulties when implementing virtualization.
CDW-G’s “2010 Government Virtualization Report,” released in July, found that 77 percent of agencies are implementing at least one form of virtualization, and of those, 89 percent are benefiting from the technology. Those benefits include reduced operating and capital costs, improved use of computing resources and greater IT staff productivity, respondents said.
In November, CDW-G compared state and local governments’ efforts in virtualization and compiled the following information:
• Overall, 84 percent of state government agencies say they have implemented virtualization, compared to 73 percent of local government agencies.
• State agencies give their CIOs higher grades for virtualization technology proficiency (54 percent grade their CIO an A or B) than local agencies (36 percent grade their CIO an A or B).
• Few state and local agencies apply a “Virtualization First” strategy — 35 percent for state governments and 29 percent for local governments.
• Both state and local agencies are experiencing the same top challenges during implementation: migration of legacy applications and existing operating systems to a virtual environment; capital costs; and training requirements.
• More state agencies (89 percent) are measuring the success of their virtualization programs than local agencies (78 percent).
• Only about half of both state (49 percent) and local (50 percent) agencies that have implemented virtualization believe their implementation has been successful.
• Seventy-nine percent of state agencies and 86 percent of local government agencies do not believe they have used virtualization to the fullest extent.
Download the 2010 Government Virtualization Report.
