Virtualisation 'becoming a growing global business trend'

Companies worldwide are likely to be embracing the benefits of virtualisation more widely in their IT management over the coming year.

This is according to Eoin Blacklock, managing director of data security firm KeepItSafe, who suggested that safe storage of important business information will be a key trend in 2012.

According to the expert, the risks associated with physical media such as USB sticks will lead to a decline in the popularity of this format, while local storage will also decline in usefulness due to exponential increases in corporate data production.

Both of these trends will have the effect of driving businesses towards virtualisation and cloud storage solutions, both among large corporations and small to medium-sized enterprises.

"All companies will need to seek out flexible, scalable and affordable storage options that can grow with their business - putting data backup high up on the agenda for 2012," said Mr Blacklock.

This comes after a report from Quest Software earlier this month revealed that more than half of IT decision-makers plan to spend at least a quarter of their budgets on virtualisation projects next year.