Common inhibiting factors for technology shifting from physical to virtual computing

Abstract

Due to the rapid growth of cloud computing demands and the high cost of managing traditional physical IT infrastructure, virtualization technique has emerged as a foremost and key success factor for technology adopters to attain the intended benefits. However, the transition from physical to virtual computing is confronted with overwhelming adoption inhibitors rarely known to adopters. This paper examines inhibiting factors which have triggered to low adoption rate of virtualized computing infrastructure despite being the fastest growing and globally accepted technology. Survey results from 24 companies indicate that lack of relevant virtualization skills, security uncertainties, low computing demands and change management issues are the utmost inhibitors. In public entities, the slowness in the adoption process is highly caused by the low computing demands, lack of virtualization coverage in ICT policies, resistance to change, choice of technology and the lack of virtualization project priority in the ICT master plans. On the other hand, the use of open-source hypervisors and support and maintenance are specific inhibitors affecting the private sectors. This paper is useful for adopters who have virtualized their server resources or have a plan to virtualize in the near future.