Small and medium-sized businesses around the world are beginning to invest more heavily in virtualization initiatives to accelerate the adoption of cloud servers. A recent study by VMware found that roughly 48 percent of SMBs have adopted virtualization for basic infrastructure improvements, yet 75 percent of decision-makers plan to expand their virtualization projects over the next two years, according to Channel Biz.

"What is interesting is that of the SMB[s] that have already virtualized, around half of them have done it just [for] the IT basics, on test and dev, and have just started on this journey," Ed Dolman of VMware said, according to the news source. "A very significant percentage said that SMBs in the next two years are really looking to drive this forward."

The study noted that the primary driver behind virtualization is the cost-savings associated with the technology. Meanwhile, increasing business continuity and agility were other factors, Channel Biz noted.

According to Gartner analyst Tom Bittman, Infrastructure as a Service vendors need to embrace virtualization, as the technology is a major on-ramp to their services. As more SMBs deploy virtualized environments, they will be more inclined to migrate to the cloud.