Over the course of the trade show, 113 government agency IT administrators and directors were surveyed to determine the changing needs of agency IT operations. One of the biggest trends was the IT department s desire for effective virtualization solutions. Over 90 percent of the survey respondents indicated that virtualization management was extremely important for their IT operations, with over 70 percent planning on a solution implementation within the next year. Another key trend was the assessed readiness for IPv6 among agency IT departments. IPv6 is the next generation of IP protocol, the basis for sending and receiving information on the Internet, which is currently using IPv4. Only 1 in 5 attendees surveyed indicated that their agency would be ready for IPv6 by the 2008 deadline, with 1 in 4 noting that they will NOT be ready. Other findings from the survey revealed: Contrary to popular belief, IT departments do feel valued by their respective agencies, with over 90 percent reporting that agencies understand the value of their contributions. Multiplatform multiple vendor- database management had strong poll among the respondents, with over 70 percent saying it was important to their operations, but fewer than 40 percent will actually pursue any solution by next year. FISMA was important to only 66 percent of the respondents with only 40 percent planning a technology implementation by next year. Information Technology Infrastructure Library ITIL- and the configuration management database CMDB- was seen as important by 55 percent of respondents, with fewer than 30 percent implementing such a solution by next year. IT administrators were also asked to list their top concerns for the department, which included: IT security - 82 percent, budget constraints - 75 percent and dealing with new technology - 42 percent. The findings underscore the demand on government IT departments to keep operations going 24x7, achieve compliance and implement new technologies in support of E-Government initiatives all while cutting costs and increasing efficiency, said Link. The results make clear that government agencies require reliable, cost-effective solutions to manage existing as well as new technologies deployed to support mandates mission-critical IT infrastructure. Source: www.dmreview.coma>