More and more IT professionals in both large and small companies are opting to use virtualisation to improve performance, a new report suggests.

Email research specialists emedia found that 50 per cent of IT professionals in the UK are already using new virtualisation technology - or plan to implement it within the next six months.

However, over half (52 per cent) of the IT professionals who responded to the survey thought that virtualisation technologies presented them with new security headaches.

These included considerations about patching and updates (32 per cent), guest-to-guest attacks (27 per cent), and the addition of new host software (22 per cent).

IT professionals thought that it would be possible to overcome these security risks by implementing staff training programmes and improving awareness of the technology.

"The advantages of virtualisation appear to be tantalising but it seems that IT managers approach it with caution," explained David Clark, managing director at emedia.

Computer experts thought that new virtualisation systems could help a business consolidate space, improve disaster recovery systems and increase the speed of computer networks.