Why Few Data Centers Are Fully Optimized
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Why Few Data Centers Are Fully Optimized
Modernizing and streamlining the data center is imperative for IT departments in order to deliver the agility and flexibility required by their businesses. -
Under Performing
Just 9% of tech execs said their IT operations—including team staffing, standardized processes and app management—are optimized. -
Future Plans
48% said they plan to expand cloud initiatives to optimize IT, and 40% said they want to develop/acquire new skill sets while 37% said they intend to consolidate apps. -
App-Mania!
67% said there are no less than 100 apps in use within their organization, with 35% saying there are 500 or more in use. -
Self-Evaluation
56% said their organization has either completed an app interdependency analysis, or is now conducting one. -
Shifting Focus
On average, survey respondents said 59% of their IT infrastructure/app workload is distributed within a corporate-owned data center, but this percentage is expected to decline to 47% within two years as they expand upon the use of outsourcing and colocation. -
Conflicting Agendas
62% said their tech department is challenged by the need to balance day-to-day operations with the pursuit of innovation/business initiatives. -
Overwhelming Options
55% said IT is challenged in assessing new technology choices. -
Imperfect Arrangement
53% said their tech department struggles to ensure that IT skill sets match operational management needs. -
Re-Balancing Act
On average, survey respondents said 65% of IT operations management tasks are assigned to in-house staff, but this is expected to decline to 58% within two years. Within the same period, outsourced service providers will increase their roles here from 18% of tasks to 25%. -
Top Factors in Deciding upon an IT Platform
Security requirements: 62%, Compliance needs/expectations: 37%, Business objectives: 32%, Performance demands: 31%, Costs: 27%
Very few tech executives feel that their IT operations are running at an "optimized" level, according to a recent survey from Datalink. The resulting report, titled "Data Centers in Flux: The IT Optimization Challenge," indicates that many of these execs feel that they need to expand cloud initiatives to reach a higher state of performance. They'd also like to gain new skill sets in the tech department while consolidating apps—the latter because there are literally hundreds of apps in use within their organization at any given time. In addition, they're intently focused on data center operations, as they seek to reduce dependencies on corporate-owned data centers in favor of outsourcing/colocation options. "Most IT organizations today are overwhelmed by the need to keep up with new technologies and an increasing number of applications, balance day-to-day operations with new IT initiatives, and simply do what they need to do to improve the way they manage workloads," said Paul Lidsky, president and CEO of Datalink. "The result … is that they aren't operating at peak efficiency or able to take advantage of opportunities to close the (tech) optimization gap between current and desired state. Modernizing and streamlining the data center is imperative for IT departments in order to deliver the agility and flexibility required by their businesses, both today and in the future." More than 100 IT execs took part in the research, which was conducted by IDG Research Services.