IT Decision Makers Aligned on Key IT Trends

Pete Goldin
APMdigest
Learn more about Dell EMC

Business decision makers’ (BDMs) and IT decision makers’ (ITDMs) understanding of current IT trends are much closer than they are generally perceived to be, according to the new Dell State of IT Trends 2016 global study.

In the past, business and IT leaders had different levels of understanding of IT trends and technologies. However the study shows that over time, business and IT leaders’ perceptions of technology have evolved and more closely aligned as new technologies have entered the market and become increasingly critical drivers of an organization’s success.

The Dell State of IT Trends 2016 global study reveals a greater sophistication and alignment in understanding of IT trends between the two groups. The results indicate that IT and business leadership are better collaborating and having in-depth conversations about not only how technology works but how it can propel the business forward.

“There is a lingering misperception that business leaders are disconnected during strategic IT discussions, but times have changed,” said Matt Baker, Executive Director, Enterprise Strategy, Dell. ”This study reveals that there is an increasingly common understanding between business and IT decision makers on the key IT trends and the growth opportunities that IT can deliver.”

In today’s data-driven economy, companies need IT that is agile, efficient, scalable and capable of responding to business applications in real time. According to the Dell survey, increasing business productivity is the main IT consideration for both ITDMs (81 percent) and BDMs (77 percent), followed by growing the business (71 percent and 69 percent, respectively).

Global decision makers, in companies of all sizes and in both developed and developing markets, are most closely aligned on the following IT trends:

■ ITDMs (62 percent) and BDMs (51 percent) agree that cloud computing is the most important technology trend for their companies.

■ The ability to burst to public cloud as needed is important to both ITDMs (83 percent) and BDMs (74 percent)

■ 88 percent of ITDMs and 80 percent of BDMs say their organization is considering adopting a software-defined data center (SDDC), is in the process of transitioning, or has already completed the transition to one.

■ Global BDMs are more likely to say they are considering adopting SDDC, while global ITDMs are more likely to say they have already started the transition.

■ Both groups agree the benefits of SDDC are flexibility, simplicity, efficiency and cost-savings, although ITDMs also place a greater value on increased scalability (57 percent) than BDMs (40 percent).

■ By 2:1 margins, both ITDMs and BDMs say they will use more open data center technologies in the future.

■ 86 percent of ITDMs and 85 percent of BDMs agree that compute-centric is the best approach to gain a flexible, scalable and open data center.

In terms of technology spending for 2016, cloud is the main priority among both ITDMs (67 percent) and BDMs (59 percent). This is followed closely by data storage upgrades or purchase (54 percent and 48 percent, respectively).

Pete Goldin is Editor and Publisher of APMdigest

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IT Decision Makers Aligned on Key IT Trends

Pete Goldin
APMdigest
Learn more about Dell EMC

Business decision makers’ (BDMs) and IT decision makers’ (ITDMs) understanding of current IT trends are much closer than they are generally perceived to be, according to the new Dell State of IT Trends 2016 global study.

In the past, business and IT leaders had different levels of understanding of IT trends and technologies. However the study shows that over time, business and IT leaders’ perceptions of technology have evolved and more closely aligned as new technologies have entered the market and become increasingly critical drivers of an organization’s success.

The Dell State of IT Trends 2016 global study reveals a greater sophistication and alignment in understanding of IT trends between the two groups. The results indicate that IT and business leadership are better collaborating and having in-depth conversations about not only how technology works but how it can propel the business forward.

“There is a lingering misperception that business leaders are disconnected during strategic IT discussions, but times have changed,” said Matt Baker, Executive Director, Enterprise Strategy, Dell. ”This study reveals that there is an increasingly common understanding between business and IT decision makers on the key IT trends and the growth opportunities that IT can deliver.”

In today’s data-driven economy, companies need IT that is agile, efficient, scalable and capable of responding to business applications in real time. According to the Dell survey, increasing business productivity is the main IT consideration for both ITDMs (81 percent) and BDMs (77 percent), followed by growing the business (71 percent and 69 percent, respectively).

Global decision makers, in companies of all sizes and in both developed and developing markets, are most closely aligned on the following IT trends:

■ ITDMs (62 percent) and BDMs (51 percent) agree that cloud computing is the most important technology trend for their companies.

■ The ability to burst to public cloud as needed is important to both ITDMs (83 percent) and BDMs (74 percent)

■ 88 percent of ITDMs and 80 percent of BDMs say their organization is considering adopting a software-defined data center (SDDC), is in the process of transitioning, or has already completed the transition to one.

■ Global BDMs are more likely to say they are considering adopting SDDC, while global ITDMs are more likely to say they have already started the transition.

■ Both groups agree the benefits of SDDC are flexibility, simplicity, efficiency and cost-savings, although ITDMs also place a greater value on increased scalability (57 percent) than BDMs (40 percent).

■ By 2:1 margins, both ITDMs and BDMs say they will use more open data center technologies in the future.

■ 86 percent of ITDMs and 85 percent of BDMs agree that compute-centric is the best approach to gain a flexible, scalable and open data center.

In terms of technology spending for 2016, cloud is the main priority among both ITDMs (67 percent) and BDMs (59 percent). This is followed closely by data storage upgrades or purchase (54 percent and 48 percent, respectively).

Pete Goldin is Editor and Publisher of APMdigest

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While organizations want to take control of their telemetry, building telemetry pipelines from scratch can be a very daunting, complicated task, even when leveraging open-source standards like OpenTelemetry. It requires specialized knowledge across distributed systems, data engineering, and security. This fragmented approach across systems causes higher operational costs; it puts a strain on resources and reduces efficiency as teams have to work with different interfaces and processes ...

The Corporate Network Is Fading - Here's What Replaces It

For decades, enterprise networks were designed around a simple assumption: work happened inside the office. Applications lived in centralized data centers, employees connected through internal infrastructure, and security focused on protecting the perimeter that surrounded everything ... But the way organizations operate today bears little resemblance to that environment. Cloud platforms host critical applications, employees connect from homes and airports as often as they do from offices, and partners collaborate through shared systems that exist far beyond corporate walls. In short, the corporate network no longer resembles the environment it was designed to protect ...

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As an analyst who researches how IT organizations design, build, and operate their networks, I find that network data is a constant source of pain. Network teams struggle with data quality, fragmentation, authority, access, and trust. And these issues undermine everything they try to do. Here are the numbers: Only 45% of network teams are completely confident in the accuracy of their network source of truth, which documents the intent of their network ...

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Enterprises operate different combinations of workloads across cloud, hybrid and multicloud environments. For business-critical workloads, teams need to consider monitoring and observability early so they can detect health issues, investigate failures, and understand operational impact. Organizations place workloads on cloud platforms based on a combination of technical requirements, economics, existing dependencies, organizational standards, and business priorities. Their monitoring priorities therefore depend on what they operate and where those systems run. Those priorities will not look the same for every organization ...

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Top-performing businesses prioritize data-driven decision making, enabling leaders to move from intuition and gut feel towards evidence-based judgment. But that judgment is only sound when the data underpinning decisions is accurate. With incident management, data accuracy is particularly important. Long-term revenue, customer trust, and operational stability depend on high-quality data that enables teams to quickly identify and address the root cause of major incidents. Against this backdrop, governance becomes a critical endeavor to ensure the right data drives the right action ...

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