Aberdeen Research Indicates Companies Optimizing Dynamic Infrastructures Gain Significant Virtualization Benefits

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - Apr 12, 2011) - New research published by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), reveals that active and automatic optimization of the virtualization infrastructure does provide significant and measurable operational benefits. In the performance of their virtualized infrastructure, leading companies are twice as likely to utilize automated software management of their virtualized servers and storage. The report, Managing Virtualized Applications: Optimizing Dynamic Infrastructures illustrates that companies that define the values they want to manage, collect and analyze that data in real time, have a pre-defined plan for dealing with fore-seeable issues and allow their virtualization management software to automatically make the required changes have a much higher density of applications on their servers and experience significant reductions in application downtime.

Respondents to the January 2011 survey were segmented into two groups: The Leaders --companies who saw, on average a 38% reduction in application downtime since deploying server virtualization and The Laggards -- those who saw, on average only a 5% benefit from virtualization. The Leaders gained other advantages from virtualization, including faster times to deploy new applications, reduced IT spending and greater rates of application consolidation. In addition, companies with leading virtualization programs were able to redeploy more of their staff away from exclusively managing servers and applications to other areas within the IT organization.

"Today's virtualized infrastrucutre allows capabilities such as application mobility, automated application re-starts for high availability and automated disaster recovery capabilities. These are truly dynamic infrastructures," said Dick Csaplar, Senior Research Analyst and author of the study. "Companies that are managing their infrastrucutre with an automated, all-encompassing process and trusted software are gaining the most from their investment in virtualization technologies."

A complimentary copy of this report is made available in part by the following underwriters: Veloxum, MoreVRP, and vKernel. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?spid=30410182&cid=7040&camp=2.

Visit Aberdeen.com for additional access to complimentary IT Infrastructure Research.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen provides fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having queried more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen.com or call (617) 854-5200, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748.

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