Navigating IT: Objectives and Obstacles

May 2011

Friday, January 13, 2012

Purpose & Methodology

To provide in-depth information about the current IT objectives and obstacles facing the InfoWorld audience:
Role of IT decision-makers in the IT purchase process Top IT objectives and challenges for the following technology areas: - Application Development - Business Intelligence - Cloud Computing - Data Center/Infrastructure - Enterprise Applications - Mobile - Networking - Security - Storage - Virtualization

Survey was sent to a sample of InfoWorlds audience and was posted online at InfoWorld.com Survey fielding April 6 April 30, 2011 Respondents: 303 IT decision-makers involved in the IT purchase process

95% confidence level

Source: Navigating IT: Objectives & Obstacles InfoWorld, May 2011

Involved in Multiple Stages of the Purchase Process

Determine need
76% 58%

Determine requirements

87% 73%

Evaluate

85% 81%

Recommend and select vendors

83% 64%

Selling internally

38% 11%

Approve/authorize

44% 19%

IT Management

IT Professionals

On average, respondents are involved in 4 stages of the purchase process

Q. In which of the following ways are you involved in the purchase process for IT products and services?
3
Source: Navigating IT: Objectives & Obstacles InfoWorld, May 2011

InfoWorld Audience Juggling IT Investments

Average number of solutions respondents investing in per category:

Storage Security Networking Virtualization Data Center/Infrastructure Mobile Application Development Cloud Computing Enterprise Applications Business Intelligence
34% 40% 45% 49%

56%

4 7 4 3 2 4 6 3 4 3

55%

54%

48%

48%

45%

Q: For which of the following areas are you personally involved in making purchases at your organization (e.g. determining the business need, determining requirements, evaluating vendors and solutions, recommending and selecting vendors, selling internally and/or approving/authorizing the purchase)?

Source: Navigating IT: Objectives & Obstacles InfoWorld, May 2011

DLP & Security Management Lead Security Objectives

Preventing data loss Improving overall security management Protecting customer data/privacy Reducing risk Threat protection Managing access to data Enforcing security policy Managing security of smartphones and tablets
34% 31% 31% 28% 22% 22% 44% 48% 57% 57% 54% 54% 54%

Compliance with regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley or PCI

Reducing security costs Discovery of at-risk assets Greater control over employee privileges Improving visibility into network and data access

Improving incident response times

Other
2%

16%

Q: What objectives are driving your organizations investments in security products and services? (base: of those that are involved in Security investments)
5
Source: Navigating IT: Objectives & Obstacles InfoWorld, May 2011

Backup & Recovery Primary Focus for Storage Investments

Backup and recovery Data deduplication Network attached storage (NAS) Business continuity/disaster recovery software
41% 41% 40% 69%

Storage arrays
Email archiving Storage servers Cloud- based storage services Solid state drives Fibre Channel SAN ISCSI SAN Storage management software Tape libraries tape drives and media Storage switches Professional storage services Other
2%

32%
29% 27% 25% 25% 22% 22% 20% 18%

13%
10%

Investing in an average of 4 storage solutions

Q: In which of the following storage solutions and services is your organization investing or increasing investments in the next 12 months? (base: of those that are involved in Storage investments)

Source: Navigating IT: Objectives & Obstacles InfoWorld, May 2011

Availability & Security Tops Storage-Related Challenges

Ensuring disaster recovery Data security Improving data availability Capacity planning of storage Improving recovery times Rapid data growth Improving storage utilization Supporting virtual environments Dealing with growth in rich content Meeting backup windows Provisioning additional storage Moving static data off of expensive storage tiers Data center energy power and cooling Managing heterogeneous storage systems Meeting compliance and regulatory requirements Lack of skilled administrators Tracking ongoing costs or TCO Other
1% 21% 19% 18% 16% 16% 16% 25% 31% 30% 29% 43% 42% 40% 38% 36% 35% 53%

Q: What are the top storage-related challenges your organization is facing? (base: of those that are involved in Storage investments) 7
Source: Navigating IT: Objectives & Obstacles InfoWorld, May 2011

Network Stitches/Routers & Wireless LAN Top Network Investments

Network sitches/routers Wireless LAN Network monitoring/testing VoIP Network management software WAN Network analyzers IPv6 Load Balancers Converged infrastructure Other
1% 19% 23% 28% 35% 40% 53%

53%

39%

27%

22%

Investing in an average of 4 network solutions

Q: In which of the following networking solutions and services is your organization investing or increasing investments in the next 12 months? (base: of those that are involved in Network investments) 8
Source: Navigating IT: Objectives & Obstacles InfoWorld, May 2011

Learn More

For a presentation of the complete survey results, please contact Bob Melk at bmelk@idgenterprise.com.

Source: Navigating IT: Objectives & Obstacles InfoWorld, May 2011