Red Hat reveals insights into virtualisation state of play in Australia

·         79% of respondents currently have a virtualisation strategy in place

·         85.2% would consider an open source virtualisation solution

·         Nearly 81% with a virtualisation solution have benefited from cost savings

·         Ease of management is the priority when selecting a virtualisation solution

Sydney, Australia – Monday 8 February 2010 – Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the results of a Red Hat-sponsored survey of more than 900 businesses and Government departments on their use of virtualisation technology.  The results revealed that 79% of respondents currently have a virtualisation strategy in place. The survey, conducted by Red Hat Australia and New Zealand and involving a range of local organisations from the IT, Government, telecommunications, banking and finance sectors, also found that 85.2% of respondents would consider an open source virtualisation solution for their organisation.

According to one respondent, open source virtualization options are gaining interest because “not being tied to one vendor allows greater flexibility if and when our virtualisation strategy changes.”  Another respondent agreed, stating that “reduced lock in, flexibility and lower costs” are reasons to choose an open source virtualisation solution. A further respondent said that open source virtualisation offers “flexibility without compromising performance and security.”

Over 85% of respondents noted that virtualisation was 'extremely important' or 'very important' for the future of their organization.  Of those with a virtualisation strategy currently in place, two of the biggest benefits being realised were identified as cost savings (80.3%) and a reduced data centre footprint (69.6%). When asked approximately how much money their organisation has saved as a result of the virtualisation solution, responses varied from more than a billion dollars to some 60% of the IT hardware budget.

The survey also unveiled that ease of management (66.9%), closely followed by reliability (65.2%), ease of deployment (61.5%), performance (59.3%) and cost (59.2%) were among the key criteria used to select a virtualisation solution.

“Our investigation into virtualisation has uncovered interesting findings, some of which confirm key trends that we have seen developing in organisations across the country, such as the desire to use virtualisation to carve out costs,” said Max McLaren, senior director and general manager for Red Hat Australia and New Zealand.   “It is clear that Australian businesses, which are well-versed in leveraging virtualisation, are looking for an alternative to the historical offerings in order to achieve the flexibility and choice that they have come to enjoy from  open source leaders like Red Hat.”

In early November 2009, Red Hat announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers, the newest product set in the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization portfolio that includes both a standalone hypervisor and server virtualization management tools. The availability of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers marks a key milestone in Red Hat’s continued evolution as a virtualisation and cloud computing leader.

For more information about the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization portfolio, visit www.redhat.com/virtualization/rhev/servers/.

For more information about Red Hat, visit www.redhat.com.  For more news, more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.

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About the research

The research was conducted by Red Hat Australia and New Zealand in November 2009, based on 929 completed surveys. The online survey was completed by Australian organisations from a range of industry sectors including IT, Government, telecommunications and banking and finance. Participating organisations ranged in size from less 50 people to more than 2,000 people.

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions and a component of the S&P 500, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with over 65 offices spanning the globe. CIOs ranked Red Hat as one of the top vendors delivering value in Enterprise Software for six consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value survey. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with virtualization, applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com.

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