This IDC study presents in-depth analysis of primary customer research data analyzing six common server virtualization use cases to understand enterprise demand for networking services based on how they are implementing virtualization. Virtualization has become a very important part of the enterprise IT strategy for most enterprises. Despite the current economic downturn, enterprises are still investing in deploying virtualization because of the technology's ability to decrease hardware spending. This continued deployment is generating opportunities for IT services providers that can provide consulting and integration services. However, as the deployments increase in scope and complexity, there are also increasing opportunities for networking services vendors that can provide network consulting and integration services that ensure that the enterprise network will be able to support the server virtualization.

"While the majority of the virtualization services attention has been focused on the IT opportunities, there is considerable customer spending on networking services," said Matt Healey, research manager, Software and Hardware Support Services.