Research: 69 percent say microservers are a significant innovation
Servers remain an integral part of IT services, and microservers are an option for many organizations, with their reduced power usage, smaller space requirements and lower costs.
To find out who is using microservers, and why, and how this form factor might help organizations, Tech Pro Research conducted an online survey in February and March 2014. There were 167 respondents, from companies of all sizes around the world. The resulting report, Microservers: The newest data center innovation, revealed that many companies are making room for microservers in their IT budgets.
Topics covered in the research report include:
- Physical locations of microservers
- Why companies are using microservers
- Preferred vendors
- Network and connectivity options with microservers
- Total number of servers in use
- Server innovation
Download the full research report from Tech Pro Research - Microservers: The newest data center innovation.
There are several different types of servers, from traditional rack-mount servers, to converged systems, hybrid systems and now, the microserver. Given that the microserver is a relatively new form factor, it's hard for some organizations to decide where to use them, if at all. Companies of all sizes are testing, evaluating, or are already deploying microservers. They fill a void for certain situations by being at the right price point.
Many consider microservers to be a significant innovation in the data center. When comparing responses from companies of all sizes, 69 percent of respondents said they are a significant innovation. Breaking it down by company size revealed that the smaller companies, with 249 or fewer employees, were even more impressed with microservers, with 75 percent of those in organizations with 50-249 employees considering them significant, and 74 percent of those in companies with fewer than 50 employees.
Overall, 53 percent of respondents said they are working on microserver projects — 23 percent deploying them in test and/or production environments and 33 percent evaluating them prior to a possible purchase.
It's interesting to note that microservers are currently being evaluated more than they are being deployed or tested. This is a sign that microservers might not make it to the next generation of mainstream hardware, but it isn't a solid indication by any means.
Reasons for not using microservers
Respondents who are not planning to leverage microservers for their IT departments showed a preference for traditional platforms; I/O limitations also figured as a significant blocker for microserver adoption. Supportability, security and trustworthiness of the microserver platform were cited by 36 percent of respondents who voiced anti-microserver thoughts, as seen in the following chart:
As the report states, "Companies today have a decision on whether or not to leverage the microserver, if the use case presents itself. Based on the results of our survey, organizations that are investing in the microserver are doing so for specific needs and in some cases multiple use cases are solved by the microserver."
To read more on the subject, download the full Tech Pro Research report, Microservers: The newest data center innovation. The report is free to all Tech Pro Research subscribers.
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