According to the survey - which polled more than 460 decision makers in medium and large enterprises - most respondents believe that automation plays a key role in reaping the financial benefits of virtualisation and cloud computing.
Nearly all (95%) of respondents have implemented, are piloting, or plan to implement virtualisation in their organisation says CA.
A large majority, says the report, cited reducing costs (85%) and increasing server utilisation (84%) as the primary reasons to deploy virtualisation.
However, 63% of respondents stated that they have not experienced as much savings as expected, and five% said the complexities of virtualisation had actually introduced new costs.
CA says that the survey shows there is a direct correlation between IT service automation in a virtualised environment and cost-savings. For example, 44% of survey respondents who said most of their server provisioning processes are automated report they have significantly reduced costs through virtualisation.
Conversely, says the report, 48% of those who said the complexities of virtualisation have introduced new costs also said most of their server provisioning processes are manual.
Roger Pilc, general manager for virtualisation and automation with CA, said that the survey demonstrates that the promised benefits of virtualisation and cloud computing are hard to realise without first standardising and automating routine IT processes.
"Without automation, IT staff can be overwhelmed by the complexities and challenges of managing a highly distributed IT infrastructure consisting of virtual and physical servers, applications and dynamic cloud-based services", he said.
"These complexities can negate any benefits organisations hope to realise as this data shows", he added.