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SolarWinds Survey Highlights "Competitive IT Department"

A recent survey by SolarWinds, a provider of IT management software, indicates that IT departments plan to invest in key areas of business in order to play a more competitive role.

SolarWinds conducted the survey in December 2011 and received responses from nearly 65 IT professionals. As part of the survey, SolarWinds asked each IT professional a series of questions related to their plans regarding cloud and virtualization.

Survey findings include:

* Nearly 65 percent of respondents plan to invest in competitive analysis vs. external services.

* More than 60 percent plan to invest in marketing IT services back to the business.

* Nearly 60 percent plan to invest in product management for those IT services.

“IT’s role of creating and maintaining infrastructure is transforming to act as more of an intermediary or broker in addition to those traditional roles,” said Jonathan Reeve, SolarWinds’ Sr. Director of Product Management. “IT professionals will need to demonstrate their expertise by identifying and implementing the most appropriate virtualization and cloud tools that fit their company's needs. Investing in areas such as competitive analysis, marketing and product management will help them on their way to becoming successful business leaders.”

“IT departments looking to stay competitive should ask themselves what direction their company is heading, identify the goals and determine IT's strategic role,” continued Reeve. “The good news is that IT departments already have the upper-hand in understanding the unique requirements of the businesses they support.”

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SolarWinds Survey Highlights "Competitive IT Department"

A recent survey by SolarWinds, a provider of IT management software, indicates that IT departments plan to invest in key areas of business in order to play a more competitive role.

SolarWinds conducted the survey in December 2011 and received responses from nearly 65 IT professionals. As part of the survey, SolarWinds asked each IT professional a series of questions related to their plans regarding cloud and virtualization.

Survey findings include:

* Nearly 65 percent of respondents plan to invest in competitive analysis vs. external services.

* More than 60 percent plan to invest in marketing IT services back to the business.

* Nearly 60 percent plan to invest in product management for those IT services.

“IT’s role of creating and maintaining infrastructure is transforming to act as more of an intermediary or broker in addition to those traditional roles,” said Jonathan Reeve, SolarWinds’ Sr. Director of Product Management. “IT professionals will need to demonstrate their expertise by identifying and implementing the most appropriate virtualization and cloud tools that fit their company's needs. Investing in areas such as competitive analysis, marketing and product management will help them on their way to becoming successful business leaders.”

“IT departments looking to stay competitive should ask themselves what direction their company is heading, identify the goals and determine IT's strategic role,” continued Reeve. “The good news is that IT departments already have the upper-hand in understanding the unique requirements of the businesses they support.”

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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 ... 

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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) ...

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 ...

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