VM Ware allows organizations to run mutple servers on one file server. Essentially many servers in production are being utilized at a very low rate often at 10% – 15%. Using VM Ware a business can use less larger servers with many servers running on them at a ratio of 10 to 1 or more. Consolidating servers in this manner will provide an obvious savings in hardware resource and maintenance as well as space and energy.
VM Ware has been available and in use since the mid-90s. Initially it was used as a desktop tool for primarily technical professionals. VM Ware then moved into the server world primarily for test labs. VM Ware has recently been a viable solution for production data center file servers. It is my understanding and my opinon that although the actually number of production servers running VM Ware is a small percentage this will increase dramatically to a significant percentage over the next 3 – 5 years. My guess is at least 20 – 40 percent and this will be across all business markets from small companies to the very large ones.