Storage has a vital role to play in reducing costs in 2009 as IT budgets across Europe remain flat, according to Gartner Executive Programs (EXP).

The market watcher’s Meeting the Challenge: The 2009 Chief Information Officer (CIO) Agenda report, found that overall budgets are set to increase just 0.16 per cent in 2009.

The report concluded that CIOs will focus on realising value from existing assets, and ranked servers and storage virtualisation technologies as third in a top-10 priorities list.

Mark McDonald, group vice president and head of research for EXP, added: “Executives are facing challenging global economic conditions that have not existed for more than 50 years. One-third of CIOs reported no change in this year’s budget from 2008, while 46 per cent reported a slight increase, and 21 per cent reported a reduction.”

Adam Kemp, director of datacentre consolation firm Richardsoneyres, said: “As Gartner says, firms must ensure they are using their existing infrastructure to capacity.

“Virtualisation technology allows you to do this and although an initial investment is required, ultimately, the benefits will save you money.”

Paul Hickingbotham, solutions manager at storage distributor Hammer, said: “I am not surprised at the high ranking of server and storage virtualisation ­ especially given the market conditions.

“Virtualisation has an attractive RoI, reducing power consumption, and therefore saving businesses real money in the mid to long term.”