Codestone

Category: Virtualisation

The potential for portability is one of the main factors likely to drive server virtualisation in the future, according to one expert.

Colleen Healy, Microsoft general manager of financial services, was quoted by Information Management as making the comments at the TradeTech conference this week.

While Ms Healy acknowledged that cost savings will continue to encourage take-up of the technology, she suggested that a concept similar to mainframe computing makes it even more "exciting".

Master copies of applications and operating systems can exist on banks of servers, she explained, with copies being made when needed to support individual users.

Access can be granted "regardless of where you are", the specialist said, enabling "a lot of productivity and innovation".

Meanwhile, president and chief executive of VMware Paul Maritz has stated that virtualisation is increasingly being seen as the "foundation for modern IT architectures" and a means for organisations to advance cloud computing efforts.

Posted by Jack Gilbert