A majority of CIOs consider managing their virtual server environments a critical priority, but more than half aren’t confident they are doing it effectively, survey results show.

Management software maker CA Monday released the results of its global virtualization management study that polled 300 CIOs and other top executives at companies worldwide to gauge how they are tackling virtual server management. The results show that while 54% of large enterprise companies ranked management of their virtual server environment as a critical or high priority, less than half said they believed their companies were doing an effective job.

For instance, just 11% of companies worldwide polled said they felt their approach to managing virtual environments was extremely effective. Thirty-four percent reported their approach was delivering above average results, and the remaining CIOs and IT executives polled face challenges or are uncertain of the effectiveness of their approach to managing virtual servers.

Among the challenges, security ranked as a top concern, cited by 42% of CIOs polled. In addition, 40% ranked managing diverse infrastructure as a significant challenge when managing virtual and physical assets. Optimizing systems utilization and load balancing tied with management, with 40% saying it represents a significant challenge in a heterogeneous environment with both physical and virtual servers. (Learn more in our Server Management Buyer's Guide.)  

Virtualization platform vendors, established management software makers and management newcomers continue to flood the market with tools to manage virtual servers. But CA, which last year found companies saying virtualization ROI was difficult to quantify, says that managing multi-platform virtualized and physical environments will demand IT shops centralize management functions for the entire environment.

"IT executives must go beyond relying on an assortment of point platform-based management tools to one that centralizes virtual, physical and clustered environments," said Paula Daley, vice president of product marketing at CA, in a statement.