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IT Trends 2018: The Intersection of Hype and Performance - Part 1

Leon Adato

According to Google, in the time it takes you to read this sentence, a website will lose 53% of its visitors if the page hasn't loaded. This confirms what most of us have known for a while: IT performance is more important than ever in today's digital economy. It's crucial to an organization's bottom line, as high bounce rates can result in lost money, while improved performance can save time and money.

Also well known is that emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and blockchain are disrupting the industry. With that said, while they may be top of mind for the c-suite, in many cases, IT professionals are focused on more urgent, basic performance problems. The SolarWinds IT Trends Report 2018: The Intersection of Hype and Performance investigates how IT professionals view the current state of technology and digital transformation.

Overall, the 2018 key findings show:

Hybrid IT and cloud computing will remain IT professionals' top priority for the next five years as these elements meet today's business needs while serving as the foundation for trends like machine learning and AI.

■ 94 percent of IT professionals surveyed indicate hybrid IT or cloud as one of the top five most important technologies in their IT organization's technology strategy today, with 51 percent listing it as their number one most important technology.

■ When ranking most important technologies today, and for digital transformation over the next three to five years, as well as technologies with the greatest potential to provide productivity/efficiency benefits and ROI, IT professionals ranked hybrid IT and cloud as number one across the board (by weighted rank).

At the same time, IT professionals are prioritizing internal investments in containers as a proven solution to the challenges of hybrid IT and cloud computing, and a key enabler of innovation.

■ 44 percent of respondents ranked containers as the most important technology priority today, and 38 percent of respondents ranked containers as the most important technology priority three to five years from now.

■ Concurrently, AI and ML investments are expected to increase in importance over the next three to five years – 37 percent of respondents indicate that AI is the biggest priority and 31 percent of respondents indicate that ML is the biggest priority three to five years from now (compared to 29 percent and 21 percent today, respectively).

The results of the IT Trends survey suggest a dissonance between the views of IT professionals and their senior managers on priorities for IT investment over the next three to five years.

■ On the weighted list of technologies IT professionals believe are needed for an IT organization's digital transformation over the next three to five years, AI did not make the top five. This contrasts with a recent CEO survey, which found that 81 percent of CEOs consider AI and machine learning to be a priority for their business, up from just 54 percent in 2016 (Fortune).

While IT professionals continue prioritizing hybrid IT and cloud computing, adoption of these technologies has made it challenging to optimize performance of their systems and applications.

■ 58 percent of IT professionals surveyed indicated that by weighted rank, hybrid IT/cloud presents the greatest challenges when it comes to implementation, roll-out, and day-to-day performance.

■ Nearly half (47 percent) of all IT professionals surveyed think that their IT environments are not operating at optimal levels.

■ Over half of all IT professionals surveyed spend less than 25 percent of their time proactively optimizing performance.

■ Nearly half of IT professionals spend 50 percent or more of their time reactively maintaining and troubleshooting their IT environment.

Many IT professionals cite a lack of organizational strategy and inadequate investment in areas such as user training as the most common barriers to system optimization.

■ Of IT professionals indicating their environments are not optimized, 43 percent ranked inadequate organizational strategy as one of the top three barriers to achieving optimization. To achieve true performance and work toward a successful digital transformation, IT professionals require deeper strategic collaboration with business leaders.

If IT professionals want to be instrumental to their organization's successful digital transformation journey, they should continue prioritizing a hybrid IT environment while simultaneously developing new skillsets and leveraging emerging technologies.

Start with: IT Trends 2018: The Intersection of Hype and Performance - Part 2, offering recommendations on how to manage the intersection of hype and performance.

Methodology: The 2018 IT Trends Report is based on a survey of IT practitioners, managers, and directors at public- and private-sector small, mid-size, and enterprise organizations, fielded in December 2017 by C White Consulting on behalf of SolarWinds. 803 respondents from North America, Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United Kingdom were surveyed, as reported on the SolarWinds IT Trends Index.

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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 ...

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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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IT Trends 2018: The Intersection of Hype and Performance - Part 1

Leon Adato

According to Google, in the time it takes you to read this sentence, a website will lose 53% of its visitors if the page hasn't loaded. This confirms what most of us have known for a while: IT performance is more important than ever in today's digital economy. It's crucial to an organization's bottom line, as high bounce rates can result in lost money, while improved performance can save time and money.

Also well known is that emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and blockchain are disrupting the industry. With that said, while they may be top of mind for the c-suite, in many cases, IT professionals are focused on more urgent, basic performance problems. The SolarWinds IT Trends Report 2018: The Intersection of Hype and Performance investigates how IT professionals view the current state of technology and digital transformation.

Overall, the 2018 key findings show:

Hybrid IT and cloud computing will remain IT professionals' top priority for the next five years as these elements meet today's business needs while serving as the foundation for trends like machine learning and AI.

■ 94 percent of IT professionals surveyed indicate hybrid IT or cloud as one of the top five most important technologies in their IT organization's technology strategy today, with 51 percent listing it as their number one most important technology.

■ When ranking most important technologies today, and for digital transformation over the next three to five years, as well as technologies with the greatest potential to provide productivity/efficiency benefits and ROI, IT professionals ranked hybrid IT and cloud as number one across the board (by weighted rank).

At the same time, IT professionals are prioritizing internal investments in containers as a proven solution to the challenges of hybrid IT and cloud computing, and a key enabler of innovation.

■ 44 percent of respondents ranked containers as the most important technology priority today, and 38 percent of respondents ranked containers as the most important technology priority three to five years from now.

■ Concurrently, AI and ML investments are expected to increase in importance over the next three to five years – 37 percent of respondents indicate that AI is the biggest priority and 31 percent of respondents indicate that ML is the biggest priority three to five years from now (compared to 29 percent and 21 percent today, respectively).

The results of the IT Trends survey suggest a dissonance between the views of IT professionals and their senior managers on priorities for IT investment over the next three to five years.

■ On the weighted list of technologies IT professionals believe are needed for an IT organization's digital transformation over the next three to five years, AI did not make the top five. This contrasts with a recent CEO survey, which found that 81 percent of CEOs consider AI and machine learning to be a priority for their business, up from just 54 percent in 2016 (Fortune).

While IT professionals continue prioritizing hybrid IT and cloud computing, adoption of these technologies has made it challenging to optimize performance of their systems and applications.

■ 58 percent of IT professionals surveyed indicated that by weighted rank, hybrid IT/cloud presents the greatest challenges when it comes to implementation, roll-out, and day-to-day performance.

■ Nearly half (47 percent) of all IT professionals surveyed think that their IT environments are not operating at optimal levels.

■ Over half of all IT professionals surveyed spend less than 25 percent of their time proactively optimizing performance.

■ Nearly half of IT professionals spend 50 percent or more of their time reactively maintaining and troubleshooting their IT environment.

Many IT professionals cite a lack of organizational strategy and inadequate investment in areas such as user training as the most common barriers to system optimization.

■ Of IT professionals indicating their environments are not optimized, 43 percent ranked inadequate organizational strategy as one of the top three barriers to achieving optimization. To achieve true performance and work toward a successful digital transformation, IT professionals require deeper strategic collaboration with business leaders.

If IT professionals want to be instrumental to their organization's successful digital transformation journey, they should continue prioritizing a hybrid IT environment while simultaneously developing new skillsets and leveraging emerging technologies.

Start with: IT Trends 2018: The Intersection of Hype and Performance - Part 2, offering recommendations on how to manage the intersection of hype and performance.

Methodology: The 2018 IT Trends Report is based on a survey of IT practitioners, managers, and directors at public- and private-sector small, mid-size, and enterprise organizations, fielded in December 2017 by C White Consulting on behalf of SolarWinds. 803 respondents from North America, Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United Kingdom were surveyed, as reported on the SolarWinds IT Trends Index.

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

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 ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

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) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...