Virtualisation is a remarkably confusing concept for many businesses, it has been claimed.

Nigel Davey, the business development manager at Managed Networks, opined: "The confusion is only at a small and medium-sized enterprise level because it depends on what they are looking to achieve and then they are not quite sure where to go."

He added that it gets "even more confusing" when suppliers which provide hosting services use virtualisation technology to provide them as well.

The main problem, Mr Davey continued, is that many small businesses in IT see virtualisation as something as simple as putting information elsewhere.

He added that as it is somewhere else, they see it as a virtual server of some form even though it's hosted, regardless of whether they are actually using virtualisation technology to do the hosting or not.

Business Link has highlighted the bonuses of a virtualised environment, mainly in how it delivers cost savings and a greener working environment.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.