Virtualisation has laid the path for enterprises to migrate to the cloud, and 2012 will see the development of a new type of management layer that will allow companies to better orchestrate supply and demand in this “as-a-service” environment.

This is the prediction of analyst firm Ovum, commenting ahead of the VMworld 2011 conference in Copenhagen this week. VMworld, hosted by virtualisation software firm VMware, is an event for IT professionals looking for advice on how to preserve existing investments while pushing forward into the cloud.

“VMworld has over the recent years been demonstrating that the elements needed to establish an as-a-service approach to IT are real and operational,” said Ovum principal analyst, and virtualisation expert, Roy Illsley. “We anticipate in the next year the capabilities of this management layer will be enhanced, and enabled for cross-technology management.”

Virtualisation cost savings

Illsley also said that organisations need to restructure the way IT is financed and integrated into business activity. He said that while chargeback – the process of charging departments for virtualisation usage – is not new, the market lacks clear guidelines on the procedures involved.

“We anticipate that 2012 will see a convergence of thinking in this area driven by the leading vendors,” said Illsley. “if not we believe the journey to cloud computing will be diverted via a detour that will delay mainstream adoption.”

The news follows a survey commissioned in July by IT management software and solutions specialist CA Technologies, which revealed that most enterprises are disappointed at virtualisation cost savings.

A vast majority of respondents to the survey cited reducing costs as one of the primary reasons to deploy virtualisation. However, 63 percent of respondents stated that they had not saved as much as they expected, and 5 percent said the complexities of virtualisation had actually introduced new costs.

Meanwhile, a separate survey by security company Symantec in June revealed that many chief executive officers and chief financial officers are concerned about moving business-critical applications into virtual or cloud environments, due to issues with reliability, security, availability and performance. On average, just 33 percent of business-critical applications such as ERP, accounting and CRM are in hybrid/private cloud environments.

VMworld takes place at the Bella Center in Copenhagen from 18-20 October. We will be there, and you can read news from the event on eWEEK Europe UK.