A cynical lover of wordplay might suggest that Crucial's research into server memory configuration and allocation was self-serving, but the company's survey of 350 IT decision makers found an average of 29 virtual machines per physical server. To increase the number of VMs, 66% said they would add memory to existing servers while 42% said they would need to add servers.

In general, around half or more respondents allocate at least 64GB to VMs running Active Directory, file servers, email servers, databases, big data and analytics, and content creation and hosting applications.

About a quarter or more allocate 128GB or more to these functions.

About half of the respondents said unpredictable workload demands or rapid user base growth were among the biggest challenges for server workloads.

"As virtualised workloads grow it will only become more difficult for IT professionals to keep up with the demands placed on server infrastructure. Our study found that 58% of IT professionals are running less than 60% of their physical servers at their maximum memory limit," said Crucial worldwide product manager Michael Moreland.

"Whilst 46% of those IT pros said the memory installed was sufficient, others cited that a limited budget, limited time to upgrade and limited skills to upgrade was preventing them from maxing out further servers, potentially hampering their efforts to keep up with demand. But as time goes on, the server workloads of tomorrow will outstrip the workloads of today and we'd expect to see more IT professionals maxing out their memory limit to keep up with demand."