Mountain View, CA — Mid-sized enterprises are more likely than smaller and larger enterprises to adopt data center technologies like virtualization and cloud computing, but other issues are taking precedence in companies as they deal with tight budgets and staffs, according to Symantec Corp.

The company has released its 2010 State of the Data Center Report, finding that mid-sized data centers (those with 2,000-9,999 employees) are adopting cloud computing, deduplication, replication, storage virtualization and continuous data protection at 11-17 percent higher rates that other data centers.

Mid-sized enterprises are also undergoing more activity, with more managers expecting major changes and new applications this year. In turn, they also say staffing and training is more important than smaller and larger data centers say they are.

Staffing and budgets, though, are large concerns all around. Half of the respondents to the survey said they are somewhat or extremely understaffed. The main hurdles to increasing staffing are budgets and finding qualified applicants.

Staffing is further being hindered by too many applications, with one-third of all data centers saying that applications are hurting staff productivity.

While many data center are exploring virtualization, respondents said the most important topics for this year are security, backup and recovery, and continuous data protection.

The 2010 State of the Data Center Report was based on surveys from 1,780 data center managers in 26 countries in November 2009.

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