A new study from IDC is predicting that x86 server shipments will grow by just 39%, rather than 61%, between 2006 and 2010 because of the emergence of virtualization and multi-core processor technology.

Virtualization allows users to run a number of operating systems concurrently on one machine, while multicore processors provide servers with more grunt so they can do more work, ie more comfortably run multiple operating systems.

In the past you may have needed two physical servers to do the job, now you only need one.

According to IDC’s updated forecast, multicore and virtualization will cost the x86 market more than 4.5 million shipments and $2.4 billion in customer spending between 2006-2010.

The study predicts that by the end of 2010, more than 1.7 million physical servers will be shipped for virtualization activities resulting in 7.9 million logical servers. This represents 14.6% of all physical servers in 2010 compared to just 4.5% of server shipments in 2005.

“Each of these technologies is impactful to the market in their own right. However, the use of multi-core technology in conjunction with server virtualization tools has a compounding impact on server configurations, and accelerates the ability of IT organizations to exploit the benefits of multi-core technology,” said Michelle Bailey, research vice president for IDC’s Enterprise Platforms and Datacenter Trends.

“Unlike other previous multicore introductions that took time to become mainstream as customers changed their application code, virtualization allows customers to fully exploit the improvements in x86 processors immediately, accelerating business benefits and thereby increasing adoption rates.” Looking forward, IDC believes the server and component vendors will optimize around quad-core technology before moving ahead to octi-core technology.

The study also predicts that despite the decline in the number of physical shipments, over the forecast period, growth in the number of effective processors will continue to climb at a 25% annual rate because of multi-core technology advances.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 12:27 pm under Intel, Technology.

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