Virtualization - Statistics & Facts

This concept provides the possibility to make more efficient use of IT infrastructure resources. One example is segmenting server capacities into smaller parts that allows for the distribution of the server's capabilities among many users and environments. Notably, the technology has its origins in the 1960s and 1970s but took off in the 1990s and 2000s with the increasing demand for computing power. Today it is standard practice in IT enterprise infrastructure.

Virtualization market expected to grow further

The global virtualization software market has a size of around 40 to 60 billion U.S. dollars currently and is expected to grow to at least 120 billion U.S. dollars over the next few years. Almost any type of IT infrastructure can be virtualized, including servers, desktops, networks, storage, data, applications, data centers, CPUs, and GPUs. Accordingly, virtualization is a critical building block of cloud computing.

Market growth is driven by a more general shift to the cloud, as well as automation of provisioning of resources and a need for cybersecurity solutions. Additionally, more frequent adoption of remote working models and an overall acceleration of digital transformation initiatives all call for an ability to scale operations virtually. Efficient use of resources through virtualization can also help organizations reach sustainability goals by reducing energy consumption.

Businesses see benefits from virtualization usage

Virtualization offers several benefits for enterprises and businesses, such as increased IT agility, scalability, and flexibility while creating significant cost saving opportunities. It enables organizations to utilize their physical hardware resources more efficiently. Reduced downtime, simplified data center management, increased productivity for IT teams, performance increases, and higher availability of resources are additional potential benefits of virtualization.

As a result, more than half of businesses worldwide use virtualization technologies such as network function virtualization, SD-WAN, or desktop virtualization or have it on their future agenda. Accordingly, around 10 percent of IT software budgets are allocated to virtualization.

This text provides general information. Statista assumes no liability for the information given being complete or correct. Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date data than referenced in the text.