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IT Leaders Identify Efficiency, Cloud and Analytics as Top 2015 Priorities

Steven Wastie

Nearly half of IT leadership and operations personnel identify improving operational efficiency as their number one near-term internal priority, and nearly one-third say big data analytics is their top deliverable goal, according to a survey by AppDynamics. Respondents also indicated a strong push into both public and private cloud, and nearly a quarter plan to implement container solutions in the next 12 months.

We’re seeing cloud picking up tremendous momentum. When you add together public and private, just about everybody is either building new applications or migrating existing ones to the cloud. That’s something we’ve been waiting to see for some time, as enterprises have built up their comfort levels with moving important applications out of their data centers.

The other area that’s getting serious traction is analytics. About 29 percent of IT professionals we surveyed said that delivering "big data analytics" to their organization is their number one priority. They are looking to harvest data from their applications that can contribute to real business insights. So these two areas of focus — cloud and analytics — are going to dominate 2015.

Also noteworthy from the survey is what emerging stage technologies IT professionals say they are pursuing, most notably, container solutions. Docker and other container solutions are big topics of conversation, and 24 percent say they have plans to use such a solution in the next 12 months.

Here are the main survey highlights:

■ 46% say “improving operational efficiency” is their IT department’s #1 priority

■ 29% say delivering big data analytics to their organization is their #1 priority

■ 26% are building new applications in a public cloud, and 17% are migrating existing applications to a public cloud

■ 34% are building new applications in a private cloud, and 20% are migrating existing applications to a private cloud

■ 76% say they have no plans to implement a container solution in the next 12 months or are not familiar with container solutions

Mobile continues to pose challenges for IT departments; 25 percent of respondents say they don’t have sufficient mobile application development resources, and 24 percent say security concerns are still a barrier to mobile app deployment.

This data points out two significant trends. One is that IT is looking to get the most out of its resources, as shown by the overwhelming prioritization of efficiency. The second is a push to deliver greater value to the business side of the enterprise through analytics.

The survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2014, with 193 respondents in IT leadership and operations roles who attended AppDynamics’ AppSphere users conference. The margin of error is +/-5.76% at a 95% confidence level.

Steven Wastie is Chief Marketing Officer of AppDynamics.

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IT Leaders Identify Efficiency, Cloud and Analytics as Top 2015 Priorities

Steven Wastie

Nearly half of IT leadership and operations personnel identify improving operational efficiency as their number one near-term internal priority, and nearly one-third say big data analytics is their top deliverable goal, according to a survey by AppDynamics. Respondents also indicated a strong push into both public and private cloud, and nearly a quarter plan to implement container solutions in the next 12 months.

We’re seeing cloud picking up tremendous momentum. When you add together public and private, just about everybody is either building new applications or migrating existing ones to the cloud. That’s something we’ve been waiting to see for some time, as enterprises have built up their comfort levels with moving important applications out of their data centers.

The other area that’s getting serious traction is analytics. About 29 percent of IT professionals we surveyed said that delivering "big data analytics" to their organization is their number one priority. They are looking to harvest data from their applications that can contribute to real business insights. So these two areas of focus — cloud and analytics — are going to dominate 2015.

Also noteworthy from the survey is what emerging stage technologies IT professionals say they are pursuing, most notably, container solutions. Docker and other container solutions are big topics of conversation, and 24 percent say they have plans to use such a solution in the next 12 months.

Here are the main survey highlights:

■ 46% say “improving operational efficiency” is their IT department’s #1 priority

■ 29% say delivering big data analytics to their organization is their #1 priority

■ 26% are building new applications in a public cloud, and 17% are migrating existing applications to a public cloud

■ 34% are building new applications in a private cloud, and 20% are migrating existing applications to a private cloud

■ 76% say they have no plans to implement a container solution in the next 12 months or are not familiar with container solutions

Mobile continues to pose challenges for IT departments; 25 percent of respondents say they don’t have sufficient mobile application development resources, and 24 percent say security concerns are still a barrier to mobile app deployment.

This data points out two significant trends. One is that IT is looking to get the most out of its resources, as shown by the overwhelming prioritization of efficiency. The second is a push to deliver greater value to the business side of the enterprise through analytics.

The survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2014, with 193 respondents in IT leadership and operations roles who attended AppDynamics’ AppSphere users conference. The margin of error is +/-5.76% at a 95% confidence level.

Steven Wastie is Chief Marketing Officer of AppDynamics.

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Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

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In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

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