SSDs and an Under-virtualised Island-state

06.07.2012
The Implementing Information Infrastructure Symposium (IIIS) Singapore conference started off somewhat controversially when a plenary speaker declared that the technology-savvy island-state is actually under-virtualised.

Singapore is under-virtualised by 15 to 20 percentage points, according to Jim Wagstaff, managing director, of consultancy firm Jam Factory. Research from analyst firms like Forrester, IDC and Gartner support his claims, he added.

"This means that the number of virtual devices on networks in Singapore is lower than countries like Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Thailand," said Wagstaff.

Attended by about 150 storage technology decision makers, managers and specialists on 29 June at the Raffles City Convention Centre, the event was jointly organised by Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and Computerworld Singapore.

In Singapore, large multinational companies account for a large majority of IT spend, but they only account for a small percentage of the companies operating in the island-state, said Wagstaff.

"The thing is that the SMBs, who form the bulk of Singapore-based companies, are the ones who have not embraced virtualisation," said Wagstaff. This means that many are not able to take the step to adopt cloud computing for their organisations. Wagstaff's view is that the virtualisation of resources is a leading indicator of cloud readiness