Despite all the hype about server virtualisation, only 16% of workloads are running on virtual machines today, says analyst Gartner.

Virtualisation, which sees a single physical machine running multiple operating systems, is seen as a key building block towards firms adopting green IT.

Gartner said, "Although server virtualisation is not currently as widespread as many presume, the market is growing rapidly." It said, "Only 16% of workloads are running in virtual machines today, but we predict this will rise to around 50% of x86 architecture server workloads by the end of 2012."

Such a rise would represent around 58m deployed machines, said the analyst. It said the fastest growing market for virtual machines is in the small business sector.