Nearly four in every 10 servers are not physical, according to a virtualisation study that has examined large businesses in the UK, US, France and Germany.
The 'V-Index' study shows that across the countries an average of 39 per cent of servers are virtualised, with a typical large business running 470 virtual machines and 113 hosts.
Over nine in 10 businesses use virtualisation to some degree, the research found. But four in 10 see reliability concerns as a barrier to further virtualisation, with a similar proportion waiting to refresh their hardware first.
The most widely used hypervisor is VMware, used by 84 per cent of firms. Six in 10 also use Microsoft Hyper-V, 55 per cent use Citrix Xen and 12 per cent use alternatives.
The results were taken from a Vanson Bourne survey of 544 businesses, commissioned by virtualisation management firm Veeam. The company plans to conduct the research quarterly and build the V-Index site into a community site where businesses can share their virtualisation experiences.
"While the results show that virtualisation has become a standard technology in most enterprises, it is clear that there is still room for increased penetration," said Ratmir Timashev, chief executive at Veeam.