The consumerization of IT across enterprise scale IT organizations has reached a tipping point where mainstream IT organizations are recognizing that they can no longer ignore the transformational impact of consumer technologies in the enterprise, a study has found.
While the consumerization of IT creates many new opportunities, including increased employee productivity, improved customer interactions, and faster and more agile business operations and decision making, it also results in significant IT management and security challenges.
Widespread consumer adoption of the cloud is here, with cloud-based applications and social networking becoming the norm. The adoption of these services is ushering in a new era of consumer driven IT, where CIOs are facing tremendous pressure to satisfy the pervasive and real-time demand for data and services from business users within their organizations. The cloud is enabling enterprises to be more agile, offering organizations the opportunity to innovate in their product or services offerings. The days of the CI "No" are over, as the new generation of workers and customers are demanding an "always-on, always connected" experience. While new opportunities are clearly emerging, so are the risks. The need for reliable IT management and security solutions across all environments, specifically virtual and cloud, are become increasingly important to ensure that this next generation of IT is successful.
Consumer use of smartphones, social networks and cloud services are fundamentally changing the way that enterprises do business.
The study found that different IT decision makers are using different tactics to address these rapid fire changes in their customer and employee expectations. One group of thought leaders, representing 19 percent of the total sample of IT decision makers surveyed, was found to be particularly proactive in getting ahead of the curve of consumer driven IT. This group generally emphasizes the need for the IT organization to work closely with business unit decision makers to aggressively integrate consumer technologies into a wide range of customer facing programs and internal business initiatives.
This group of "leaders" can be contrasted with more "mainstream" organizations that described themselves as market followers or ones that preferred to let business decision makers lead the charge without assistance from the IT team, in that they tend to be father along in exploiting the potential advantages of IT consumerization.
The research indicates these proactive leaders are more likely to realize greater benefits from the investments they are making to proactively addressing the consumerization of IT.
For example:
-- 45 percent report they are experiencing improved customer satisfaction and loyalty by using social networks and rich media, compared to 31 percent of the mainstream group.
32 percent say they are seeing increased market share due to their use of social networks and rich media, compared to 20 percent of the mainstream group.
32 percent note they are seeing greater penetration into new geographies, compared to 20 percent of the mainstream group.
Similarly, these proactive leaders are experiencing significant benefits from the use of public cloud services. Specifically, among the 616 organizations in the survey that are using public cloud services:
-- 45 percent are reporting they are able to reduce IT staff, FTEs and/or training expenses using public cloud services, versus 35 percent of mainstream organizations.
-- 36 percent are seeing improved competitive positioning from their use of public cloud services, compared to 28 percent of the mainstream sample.
-- 36 percent see an improved ability to deal with spikes in demand using public cloud services, compared to 26 percent of mainstream organizations.
-- 33 percent experience better end-to-end application performance from using public cloud services, compared to 24 percent of mainstream organizations.
While these trends were consistent around the world, the survey did show some international variability. For example, among U.S. based IT decision makers currently using public cloud services, 42 percent said they were seeing reductions in IT staff expenses, FTEs, and/or training costs, compared to 37 percent of the total sample (including the U.S. respondents).
Comment from Crawford Del Prete, IDC's Chief Research Officer: Today's CIOs have an opportunity to lead both business and IT innovation as they help their organizations decide how to best exploit the trend towards consumerization and personalization of IT. CIOs are being called upon to do more than just maintain IT operations behind the firewall. In the face of rapid and intense consumerization of IT, CIOs are being called upon to work closely with business decision makers to create safe, secure, well-managed environments that allow the company to communicate and collaborate with customers and employees anytime, anywhere. CIOs need to lead the charge in order to ensure that customers are engaged, confidential data is protected, employee productivity is enabled, and the enterprise is getting the greatest return possible on every IT dollar it spends. The experience of these proactive leaders shows that IT and business collaboration is critical in order for CIOs to cost effectively and proactively manage, control and secure their IT environments at a time when mobility, personalization, cloud and social media are rapidly shifting business requirements.
About the study: The IDC study ("IT Consumers Transform the Enterprise: Are You Ready?") was sponsored by CA Technologies and is based on two global surveys plus a focus group of IT executives, all of which were conducted in March-and April, 2011. IDC surveyed 804 IT executives from organizations of over $1 billion in revenue with responsibility for or influence over their organization's strategy for public cloud, social, and mobile initiatives. A separate survey consisted of 1,040 IT consumers who use public cloud, smart mobile devices, and/or social networks for personal or business purposes. To qualify, respondents had to be fully employed, over 17 years of age, and use a PC or other mobile device for personal and/or work purposes.
Contact: http://www.CA.com
Showing posts with label CA Technologies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CA Technologies. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Cloud Providers, Consumers Have Conflicting Views On Cloud Security
Conflicting views among cloud providers and cloud consumers on focus, priority and responsibility suggest a pending security standoff between cloud providers and cloud users, according to a study.
Cloud providers are more focused on delivering the benefits of cost and speed of deployment, the top two reasons cited for migrating to cloud computing. The majority of cloud providers (79 percent) allocate just 10 percent or less of IT resources to security or control-related activities. This result is consistent with the finding that less than half of the respondents agree or strongly agree that security is a priority.
Additional key findings:
Fewer than 20 percent of cloud providers across the U.S. and Europe view security as a competitive advantage. Fewer than 30 percent of respondents consider security as an important responsibility. Less than 27 percent of respondents feel their cloud services substantially protect and secure customer information.
The majority of cloud providers (69 percent) believe security is primarily the responsibility of the cloud user; this contrasts with 35 percent of cloud users who believe security is their responsibility. Just 16 percent of cloud providers feel security is a shared responsibility, compared to 33 percent of cloud users who believe the duty should be shared. Thirty-two percent of both cloud providers and cloud users say security is the responsibility of the provider.
Cloud providers and cloud users disagree widely on the degree to which they saw intellectual property (IP) being too sensitive for the cloud. Sixty-eight percent of cloud users felt their IP was too risky for cloud use, compared to just 42 percent of cloud providers.
Comment from Mike Denning, general manager, Security, CA Technologies: The focus on reduced cost and faster deployment may be sufficient for cloud providers now, but as organizations reach the point where increasingly sensitive data and applications are all that remains to migrate to the cloud, they will quickly reach an impasse. If the risk of breach outweighs potential cost savings and agility, we may reach a point of "cloud stall" -- where cloud adoption slows or stops -- until organizations believe cloud security is as good as or better than enterprise security.
Comment from Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, Ponemon Institute: Given the well-publicized concerns about the potential risks to organizations' sensitive and confidential information in the cloud, we believe it is only a matter of time until users of cloud computing solutions will demand enhanced security systems. However, until this happens, users of cloud computing should be aware of their responsibility to assess the risks before migrating to the cloud. They should thoroughly vet providers and their applications and infrastructure for their ability to safeguard information. Finally, cloud users and providers should consider the importance of joint responsibility to create a secure computing environment.
About the study: For "Security of Cloud Computing Providers," sponsored by CA Technologies, Ponemon Institute surveyed 103 cloud service providers in the US and 24 in six European countries for a total of 127 separate providers. Respondents said SaaS (55 percent) is the most frequently offered cloud service, followed by IaaS (34 percent) and PaaS (11 percent). Sixty-five percent of cloud providers in this study deploy their IT resources in the public cloud environment, 18 percent deploy in the private cloud and 18 percent are hybrid.
Contact: http://www.ca.com
Contact: http://www.ponemon.org/index.php
Cloud providers are more focused on delivering the benefits of cost and speed of deployment, the top two reasons cited for migrating to cloud computing. The majority of cloud providers (79 percent) allocate just 10 percent or less of IT resources to security or control-related activities. This result is consistent with the finding that less than half of the respondents agree or strongly agree that security is a priority.
Additional key findings:
Fewer than 20 percent of cloud providers across the U.S. and Europe view security as a competitive advantage. Fewer than 30 percent of respondents consider security as an important responsibility. Less than 27 percent of respondents feel their cloud services substantially protect and secure customer information.
The majority of cloud providers (69 percent) believe security is primarily the responsibility of the cloud user; this contrasts with 35 percent of cloud users who believe security is their responsibility. Just 16 percent of cloud providers feel security is a shared responsibility, compared to 33 percent of cloud users who believe the duty should be shared. Thirty-two percent of both cloud providers and cloud users say security is the responsibility of the provider.
Cloud providers and cloud users disagree widely on the degree to which they saw intellectual property (IP) being too sensitive for the cloud. Sixty-eight percent of cloud users felt their IP was too risky for cloud use, compared to just 42 percent of cloud providers.
Comment from Mike Denning, general manager, Security, CA Technologies: The focus on reduced cost and faster deployment may be sufficient for cloud providers now, but as organizations reach the point where increasingly sensitive data and applications are all that remains to migrate to the cloud, they will quickly reach an impasse. If the risk of breach outweighs potential cost savings and agility, we may reach a point of "cloud stall" -- where cloud adoption slows or stops -- until organizations believe cloud security is as good as or better than enterprise security.
Comment from Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, Ponemon Institute: Given the well-publicized concerns about the potential risks to organizations' sensitive and confidential information in the cloud, we believe it is only a matter of time until users of cloud computing solutions will demand enhanced security systems. However, until this happens, users of cloud computing should be aware of their responsibility to assess the risks before migrating to the cloud. They should thoroughly vet providers and their applications and infrastructure for their ability to safeguard information. Finally, cloud users and providers should consider the importance of joint responsibility to create a secure computing environment.
About the study: For "Security of Cloud Computing Providers," sponsored by CA Technologies, Ponemon Institute surveyed 103 cloud service providers in the US and 24 in six European countries for a total of 127 separate providers. Respondents said SaaS (55 percent) is the most frequently offered cloud service, followed by IaaS (34 percent) and PaaS (11 percent). Sixty-five percent of cloud providers in this study deploy their IT resources in the public cloud environment, 18 percent deploy in the private cloud and 18 percent are hybrid.
Contact: http://www.ca.com
Contact: http://www.ponemon.org/index.php
Friday, December 17, 2010
"Cloud Thinking" Has Arrived In Large Enterprises
Cloud computing is coming of age in large enterprises, according to a new study of North American and European IT professionals. Enterprises are active in the cloud, and their virtualization efforts are contributing to broader interest in cloud computing. The results also indicate a shift toward approaching IT using "cloud thinking," accelerating the uses of cloud computing and helping to align IT decision makers and implementers around common goals of efficiency, flexibility and scalability.
Key findings:
-- More than 80 percent of enterprises and 92 percent of the largest enterprises have at least one cloud service; 53 percent of IT implementers indicate having more than six cloud services.
-- The primary incentives for organizations exploring the cloud are to save money (44 percent) and gain greater cost control (35 percent). IT staff are incented by increasing efficiency (35 percent) and a desire to work with the latest technologies (34 percent).
-- Security and control remain perceived barriers to the cloud. Executives are primarily concerned about security (68 percent) and poor service quality (40 percent), while roughly half of all respondents consider risk of job loss and loss of control as top deterrents.
-- Virtualization maturity leads to more optimistic attitudes toward cloud: Virtualization-intensive organizations are four times more likely to move as many services as possible to both public and private clouds.
-- Attitudes toward public and private clouds align. Respondents cite cost savings, resource efficiencies, flexibility and servicing global users as drivers for public clouds; similarly, cost, scalability, flexibility and manageability are drivers for private clouds. Security is noted as both a driver and deterrent for public and private clouds.
-- Collaboration tools lead cloud deployments at 75 percent, with hosted email, antivirus/spam filters and web conferencing noted as the most common applications being deployed in the cloud by large enterprises.
-- Infrastructure and development platforms in the cloud (Infrastructure- and Platform-as-a-Service) appear to be poised for growth with 58 percent of large organizations already using these services, and 43 percent considering them. Such use and consideration sets up infrastructure clouds as the next wave of cloud adoption.
-- On average, roughly one-third of x86 servers are virtualized within the enterprise today. Nearly half of these companies (46 percent) indicate a "managed" stage of virtualization, with the ability to move virtual machines and manage them for high availability. As enterprises move along the virtualization maturity lifecycle from basic (unmanaged virtual servers), to managed, to advanced (dynamic resource scheduling and consolidated back-up), and on to "cloud-like" (advanced virtual automation, full disaster recovery via virtualization), the applications they earmark for the cloud also begin to shift.
-- Email leads in the managed stage (53 percent); desktop virtualization and databases peak during the advanced stage (30 percent); and industry-specific applications top all others in the cloud-like stage (32 percent).
-- In addition, respondents indicate plans to continue to move mission-critical applications from non-virtualized infrastructure to virtual machines over the next couple of years. Enterprises are running nearly half (47 percent) of these applications on non-virtualized infrastructure today, which will drop by 17 percent in the next two years. Of that 17 percent, 10 percent will shift to public and private clouds.
-- As IT reorganizes itself for more dynamic virtualized environments, the tendency to embrace the cloud rises. Virtualization-intensive organizations are roughly four times more likely to move as many services as possible into both public and private clouds. Overall, the perceptions of cloud computing take on a more optimistic tone as organizations advance their technical infrastructure to support more dynamic environments.
-- When asked to share their viewpoints on drivers and barriers to the adoption of public and private clouds, respondents cite cost as a driver and barrier, suggesting the true impact and relevance of "cost savings" is still unresolved.
-- Drivers of public cloud adoption also cite resource efficiencies, flexibility and servicing global users as key drivers. Deterrents include security, compliance, internal resistance and the perception that public clouds are not suitable for some business applications.
-- Cost and security also confound private cloud adoption, with respondents citing them as both drivers and barriers. Additional drivers include scalability, flexibility and manageability, while complexity, availability and reliability, and slow adoption of new technology are seen as deterrents.
-- Survey participants also provided input on advocates and opponents of cloud computing within their organizations. Senior management (C-level and senior IT executives) are the primary advocates for public clouds, while those with more day-to-day responsibilities over virtualization and servers are seen as the leading private cloud advocates (32 percent of directors of IT operations or senior data center management, 31 percent of virtualization team, 30 percent of server management team). Not surprisingly, the security team topped the list as the primary opponent for both public and private clouds (44 percent and 27 percent respectively), with business unit leaders/managers sharing that attitude (23 percent and 18 percent respectively).
-- Overall, the study confirms large organizations are embracing both public and private clouds. Enterprises are already active in cloud computing. Virtualization is fostering the confidence and skills needed to encourage further adoption among large organizations to build private clouds. Ultimately, living in this duopoly of public and private cloud environments will require enterprises to adapt their integration tools and management philosophies to provide end-user services across both types of clouds.
Comment from Adam Famularo, general manager, Cloud Computing Business, CA Technologies: This study confirms that large enterprises are exploring the benefits of the cloud, and are looking to expand from basic services like collaboration to more complex Infrastructure and Platform cloud services. It validates a trend we predicted, that IT executives are rapidly becoming orchestrators of an IT supply chain made up of internal and external services. With this shift comes a growing need for sophisticated management and security, allowing enterprises to change how they think about IT to reap the full rewards that cloud computing offers - agility, efficiency and scalability.
About the study: This Management Insight Technologies study was executed as a web-based study. The sample was collected in September 2010 and is comprised of 434 IT professionals across two regions - North America (273) and Europe (161). Respondents working for companies that produce cloud computing software were excluded. Qualified respondents had to be sufficiently knowledgeable about their company's IT environments. The screener and sample frame were developed to target a fairly even representation of IT decision makers and IT implementers and of the three company sizes within each region.
Contact: For more details and to learn more about the survey, download a copy of "The Arrival of 'Cloud Thinking': How and Why Cloud Computing Has Come of Age In Large Enterprises" here.
Contact: http://www.ca.com/cloud
Key findings:
-- More than 80 percent of enterprises and 92 percent of the largest enterprises have at least one cloud service; 53 percent of IT implementers indicate having more than six cloud services.
-- The primary incentives for organizations exploring the cloud are to save money (44 percent) and gain greater cost control (35 percent). IT staff are incented by increasing efficiency (35 percent) and a desire to work with the latest technologies (34 percent).
-- Security and control remain perceived barriers to the cloud. Executives are primarily concerned about security (68 percent) and poor service quality (40 percent), while roughly half of all respondents consider risk of job loss and loss of control as top deterrents.
-- Virtualization maturity leads to more optimistic attitudes toward cloud: Virtualization-intensive organizations are four times more likely to move as many services as possible to both public and private clouds.
-- Attitudes toward public and private clouds align. Respondents cite cost savings, resource efficiencies, flexibility and servicing global users as drivers for public clouds; similarly, cost, scalability, flexibility and manageability are drivers for private clouds. Security is noted as both a driver and deterrent for public and private clouds.
-- Collaboration tools lead cloud deployments at 75 percent, with hosted email, antivirus/spam filters and web conferencing noted as the most common applications being deployed in the cloud by large enterprises.
-- Infrastructure and development platforms in the cloud (Infrastructure- and Platform-as-a-Service) appear to be poised for growth with 58 percent of large organizations already using these services, and 43 percent considering them. Such use and consideration sets up infrastructure clouds as the next wave of cloud adoption.
-- On average, roughly one-third of x86 servers are virtualized within the enterprise today. Nearly half of these companies (46 percent) indicate a "managed" stage of virtualization, with the ability to move virtual machines and manage them for high availability. As enterprises move along the virtualization maturity lifecycle from basic (unmanaged virtual servers), to managed, to advanced (dynamic resource scheduling and consolidated back-up), and on to "cloud-like" (advanced virtual automation, full disaster recovery via virtualization), the applications they earmark for the cloud also begin to shift.
-- Email leads in the managed stage (53 percent); desktop virtualization and databases peak during the advanced stage (30 percent); and industry-specific applications top all others in the cloud-like stage (32 percent).
-- In addition, respondents indicate plans to continue to move mission-critical applications from non-virtualized infrastructure to virtual machines over the next couple of years. Enterprises are running nearly half (47 percent) of these applications on non-virtualized infrastructure today, which will drop by 17 percent in the next two years. Of that 17 percent, 10 percent will shift to public and private clouds.
-- As IT reorganizes itself for more dynamic virtualized environments, the tendency to embrace the cloud rises. Virtualization-intensive organizations are roughly four times more likely to move as many services as possible into both public and private clouds. Overall, the perceptions of cloud computing take on a more optimistic tone as organizations advance their technical infrastructure to support more dynamic environments.
-- When asked to share their viewpoints on drivers and barriers to the adoption of public and private clouds, respondents cite cost as a driver and barrier, suggesting the true impact and relevance of "cost savings" is still unresolved.
-- Drivers of public cloud adoption also cite resource efficiencies, flexibility and servicing global users as key drivers. Deterrents include security, compliance, internal resistance and the perception that public clouds are not suitable for some business applications.
-- Cost and security also confound private cloud adoption, with respondents citing them as both drivers and barriers. Additional drivers include scalability, flexibility and manageability, while complexity, availability and reliability, and slow adoption of new technology are seen as deterrents.
-- Survey participants also provided input on advocates and opponents of cloud computing within their organizations. Senior management (C-level and senior IT executives) are the primary advocates for public clouds, while those with more day-to-day responsibilities over virtualization and servers are seen as the leading private cloud advocates (32 percent of directors of IT operations or senior data center management, 31 percent of virtualization team, 30 percent of server management team). Not surprisingly, the security team topped the list as the primary opponent for both public and private clouds (44 percent and 27 percent respectively), with business unit leaders/managers sharing that attitude (23 percent and 18 percent respectively).
-- Overall, the study confirms large organizations are embracing both public and private clouds. Enterprises are already active in cloud computing. Virtualization is fostering the confidence and skills needed to encourage further adoption among large organizations to build private clouds. Ultimately, living in this duopoly of public and private cloud environments will require enterprises to adapt their integration tools and management philosophies to provide end-user services across both types of clouds.
Comment from Adam Famularo, general manager, Cloud Computing Business, CA Technologies: This study confirms that large enterprises are exploring the benefits of the cloud, and are looking to expand from basic services like collaboration to more complex Infrastructure and Platform cloud services. It validates a trend we predicted, that IT executives are rapidly becoming orchestrators of an IT supply chain made up of internal and external services. With this shift comes a growing need for sophisticated management and security, allowing enterprises to change how they think about IT to reap the full rewards that cloud computing offers - agility, efficiency and scalability.
About the study: This Management Insight Technologies study was executed as a web-based study. The sample was collected in September 2010 and is comprised of 434 IT professionals across two regions - North America (273) and Europe (161). Respondents working for companies that produce cloud computing software were excluded. Qualified respondents had to be sufficiently knowledgeable about their company's IT environments. The screener and sample frame were developed to target a fairly even representation of IT decision makers and IT implementers and of the three company sizes within each region.
Contact: For more details and to learn more about the survey, download a copy of "The Arrival of 'Cloud Thinking': How and Why Cloud Computing Has Come of Age In Large Enterprises" here.
Contact: http://www.ca.com/cloud
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Mainframe Plays Critical Role In Cloud-Connected Enterprise
Mainframe computers continue to play a critical role in enterprise computing, have a key role in many companies' cloud-connected enterprise strategies, and the availability and development of critical mainframe skills remains a concern, according to a survey.
A significant majority (80 percent) of respondents named the mainframe as an important part of their current business strategy, and as part of their cloud plans (73 percent), and cited concerns about proficiency levels of recent college graduates as cause for concern when looking at sourcing the next generation of mainframe personnel.
The need for skilled mainframe workers becomes even more critical as companies look to leverage the mainframe as a key component of evolving plans for cloud adoption. More than two-thirds (73 percent) of respondents confirmed that the mainframe is -- or will be -- part of their organization's cloud computing strategy.
Among the survey's other significant findings:
1) Increased Mainframe Investment
-- A majority (80 percent) responded they will be maintaining or increasing spend on mainframe staff in the next 12-18 months.
-- More than three-fourths (76 percent) will maintain or increase their investment in mainframe software during the next 12-18 months.
-- Nearly half of respondents (46 percent) are looking for industry leadership from vendors on the evolving role of the mainframe in the enterprise.
2) Difficulty in Sourcing and Training Mainframe Talent
-- Nearly the same percentage of respondents (61 percent) don't believe the IT industry does enough to promote mainframe career opportunities to recent graduates.
-- 35 percent believe that recent graduates are not as proficient in mainframe technology as their counterparts that entered the workforce 10-years ago.
-- 61 percent said that hiring either took much longer than expected, took long enough to negatively impact their IT operation or are still looking for talent after more than six months.
3) Leveraging Social Media in Hiring
-- As the industry seeks to bolster mainframe education and careers in technology, companies will continue to hire. More than half (52 percent) of those surveyed cited social media networking platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn as the most effective recruiting tools. Fifty six percent indicated that they would like IT vendors to provide insights on the next generation of mainframe personnel, as they too, are feeling the staffing squeeze.
Comment from Dayton Semerjian, general manager, Mainframe, CA Technologies: With the resurgence of the mainframe underway and the recent release of IBM's zEnterprise hardware, it's clear that the mainframe is here to stay and will remain a critical component of enterprise data center as companies develop cloud strategies.
About the survey: The survey "Mainframe as a Mainstay" was conducted by Decipher Research, a marketing research services provider based in the U.S. Decipher surveyed 200 U.S. mainframe executives during September and October 2010.
Contact: http://www.ca.com
A significant majority (80 percent) of respondents named the mainframe as an important part of their current business strategy, and as part of their cloud plans (73 percent), and cited concerns about proficiency levels of recent college graduates as cause for concern when looking at sourcing the next generation of mainframe personnel.
The need for skilled mainframe workers becomes even more critical as companies look to leverage the mainframe as a key component of evolving plans for cloud adoption. More than two-thirds (73 percent) of respondents confirmed that the mainframe is -- or will be -- part of their organization's cloud computing strategy.
Among the survey's other significant findings:
1) Increased Mainframe Investment
-- A majority (80 percent) responded they will be maintaining or increasing spend on mainframe staff in the next 12-18 months.
-- More than three-fourths (76 percent) will maintain or increase their investment in mainframe software during the next 12-18 months.
-- Nearly half of respondents (46 percent) are looking for industry leadership from vendors on the evolving role of the mainframe in the enterprise.
2) Difficulty in Sourcing and Training Mainframe Talent
-- Nearly the same percentage of respondents (61 percent) don't believe the IT industry does enough to promote mainframe career opportunities to recent graduates.
-- 35 percent believe that recent graduates are not as proficient in mainframe technology as their counterparts that entered the workforce 10-years ago.
-- 61 percent said that hiring either took much longer than expected, took long enough to negatively impact their IT operation or are still looking for talent after more than six months.
3) Leveraging Social Media in Hiring
-- As the industry seeks to bolster mainframe education and careers in technology, companies will continue to hire. More than half (52 percent) of those surveyed cited social media networking platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn as the most effective recruiting tools. Fifty six percent indicated that they would like IT vendors to provide insights on the next generation of mainframe personnel, as they too, are feeling the staffing squeeze.
Comment from Dayton Semerjian, general manager, Mainframe, CA Technologies: With the resurgence of the mainframe underway and the recent release of IBM's zEnterprise hardware, it's clear that the mainframe is here to stay and will remain a critical component of enterprise data center as companies develop cloud strategies.
About the survey: The survey "Mainframe as a Mainstay" was conducted by Decipher Research, a marketing research services provider based in the U.S. Decipher surveyed 200 U.S. mainframe executives during September and October 2010.
Contact: http://www.ca.com
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Virtualization Management A Key Priority for Overcoming VM Stall
Management is a key priority for expanding virtualization across the IT environment, new research has found.
It is important to have a choice of robust, heterogeneous, virtualization-specific management solutions, covering multiple management disciplines, with a clear roadmap to extend management into enterprise-wide physical plus virtual management as organizations' IT environments mature. The roadmap for virtualization management is an important key to resolving VM stall, accelerating virtualization maturity, and delivering key benefits such as reduced cost of IT, improved operational efficiency, lower staffing costs, and increased business agility.
Five key findings:
-- The reality of VM stall: Around one-third (34 percent) of organizations have only deployed virtualization for five to 20 percent of servers - typically the "low-hanging fruit" of test and development systems, Web servers, print servers, etc. Most respondents (87 percent) have only virtualized less than 40 percent of their servers. Only 12 percent have reached the final phase of virtualization, with more than 40 percent of servers virtualized. On average, respondents have virtualized just 39 percent of their servers. Most organizations are still in the early phases of virtualization deployment, held up by VM stall.
-- Key causes of VM stall: Respondents cited several causes for their inability to expand their virtualization deployments. While budget remains the top barrier to new technology deployment, the leading non-monetary causes for VM stall include the high operational risk of a failed migration; the inability of available tools to meet management needs; and the lack of resources skilled in virtual server management.
-- Leading virtualization objectives: The research further found that at these early stages, the focus tends more toward cost savings. At this stage, the leading objective for virtualization, as cited by 39 percent of organizations, was improved efficiency and headcount reduction. A further 32 percent cited hardware and capital cost reduction as a primary virtualization goal. Only a few organizations have progressed to a more mature stage of adoption, but here focus shifts toward higher-order business outcomes. At later stages, the flexibility to meet changing business demands was the leading virtualization objective, cited as a primary goal by 43 percent of organizations.
-- Virtualization-specific vs. integrated management: In surveying organizations' preferences for dedicated vs. integrated virtualization management solutions across 11 different management disciplines, it was clear that management needs vary by maturity, discipline, and scale. A significant minority of organizations (23 to 33 percent, depending on maturity) expressed a preference for virtualization-specific management tools. However, many respondents (47 to 53 percent) expressed a preference for integrated physical plus virtual management tools. This demonstrates that there is a clear need for both virtualization-specific, and integrated physical and virtual solutions across all disciplines, and the flexibility to move seamlessly from one approach to the other.
-- Heterogeneous hypervisor support: Moreover, the research data also reinforce the fundamentally heterogeneous nature of most virtualization deployments at their deepest levels. Almost two-thirds of all respondents (65 percent) reported employing multiple hypervisors in at least some capacity (ranging from early evaluation through to full deployment), while almost one-fifth (19 percent) reported employing four or more hypervisors. This heterogeneity also contributes to the difficulty in finding adequate management tools to support virtualization environments.
Comment by Stephen Elliot, vice president of strategy, Virtualization and Automation, CA Technologies: Organizations held back by VM stall are unable to progress from the entry-level benefits of server consolidation into infrastructure optimization, automation efficiency, and dynamic data center or private cloud. This means virtualization rollouts fail to realize the full scope of promised benefits - not just cost reduction, but also service improvements, staffing benefits, business and IT agility, management efficiency, and market responsiveness.
Comment by Andi Mann, vice president of product marketing, Virtualization and Automation, CA Technologies: Organizations at all maturity levels need a choice of dedicated and integrated management tools, across multiple disciplines, and designed for heterogeneous virtualization environments, to overcome VM stall and accelerate their virtualization deployments.
The research, based on a survey of 473 IT decision makers in large and mid-sized enterprises in the U.S. and Germany, was conducted on behalf of CA Technologies by Oliver Wyman, an international management consulting firm.
Contact: http://www.ca.com/us/collateral/supporting-pieces/na/Virtualization-and-Management.aspx
It is important to have a choice of robust, heterogeneous, virtualization-specific management solutions, covering multiple management disciplines, with a clear roadmap to extend management into enterprise-wide physical plus virtual management as organizations' IT environments mature. The roadmap for virtualization management is an important key to resolving VM stall, accelerating virtualization maturity, and delivering key benefits such as reduced cost of IT, improved operational efficiency, lower staffing costs, and increased business agility.
Five key findings:
-- The reality of VM stall: Around one-third (34 percent) of organizations have only deployed virtualization for five to 20 percent of servers - typically the "low-hanging fruit" of test and development systems, Web servers, print servers, etc. Most respondents (87 percent) have only virtualized less than 40 percent of their servers. Only 12 percent have reached the final phase of virtualization, with more than 40 percent of servers virtualized. On average, respondents have virtualized just 39 percent of their servers. Most organizations are still in the early phases of virtualization deployment, held up by VM stall.
-- Key causes of VM stall: Respondents cited several causes for their inability to expand their virtualization deployments. While budget remains the top barrier to new technology deployment, the leading non-monetary causes for VM stall include the high operational risk of a failed migration; the inability of available tools to meet management needs; and the lack of resources skilled in virtual server management.
-- Leading virtualization objectives: The research further found that at these early stages, the focus tends more toward cost savings. At this stage, the leading objective for virtualization, as cited by 39 percent of organizations, was improved efficiency and headcount reduction. A further 32 percent cited hardware and capital cost reduction as a primary virtualization goal. Only a few organizations have progressed to a more mature stage of adoption, but here focus shifts toward higher-order business outcomes. At later stages, the flexibility to meet changing business demands was the leading virtualization objective, cited as a primary goal by 43 percent of organizations.
-- Virtualization-specific vs. integrated management: In surveying organizations' preferences for dedicated vs. integrated virtualization management solutions across 11 different management disciplines, it was clear that management needs vary by maturity, discipline, and scale. A significant minority of organizations (23 to 33 percent, depending on maturity) expressed a preference for virtualization-specific management tools. However, many respondents (47 to 53 percent) expressed a preference for integrated physical plus virtual management tools. This demonstrates that there is a clear need for both virtualization-specific, and integrated physical and virtual solutions across all disciplines, and the flexibility to move seamlessly from one approach to the other.
-- Heterogeneous hypervisor support: Moreover, the research data also reinforce the fundamentally heterogeneous nature of most virtualization deployments at their deepest levels. Almost two-thirds of all respondents (65 percent) reported employing multiple hypervisors in at least some capacity (ranging from early evaluation through to full deployment), while almost one-fifth (19 percent) reported employing four or more hypervisors. This heterogeneity also contributes to the difficulty in finding adequate management tools to support virtualization environments.
Comment by Stephen Elliot, vice president of strategy, Virtualization and Automation, CA Technologies: Organizations held back by VM stall are unable to progress from the entry-level benefits of server consolidation into infrastructure optimization, automation efficiency, and dynamic data center or private cloud. This means virtualization rollouts fail to realize the full scope of promised benefits - not just cost reduction, but also service improvements, staffing benefits, business and IT agility, management efficiency, and market responsiveness.
Comment by Andi Mann, vice president of product marketing, Virtualization and Automation, CA Technologies: Organizations at all maturity levels need a choice of dedicated and integrated management tools, across multiple disciplines, and designed for heterogeneous virtualization environments, to overcome VM stall and accelerate their virtualization deployments.
The research, based on a survey of 473 IT decision makers in large and mid-sized enterprises in the U.S. and Germany, was conducted on behalf of CA Technologies by Oliver Wyman, an international management consulting firm.
Contact: http://www.ca.com/us/collateral/supporting-pieces/na/Virtualization-and-Management.aspx
Friday, October 8, 2010
Mainframe Is Essential To Cloud Computing Strategies
Seventy-nine percent of IT organizations believe the mainframe is an essential component of their cloud computing strategy, a survey has found.
In addition, 74 percent of respondents believe that the mainframe will have a role in any cloud computing initiative, and 70 percent agreed that cloud computing will sustain or extend the mainframe environment.
As the mainframe takes center stage in cloud computing environments, organizations will increasingly rely on mainframe management solutions.
Eighty-two percent of respondents reported that they intend to use the mainframe in the future either as much or more than today.
The most pressing issues facing European organizations in the next 12 months is an increased demand for training (cited by 54 percent of respondents).
Comment from Dayton Semerjian, general manager, mainframe, CA Technologies: This survey provides indisputable evidence of the mainframe's agility to perform in new IT models such as cloud computing, and on-going durability as a critical data center platform for decades to come. Ongoing, practical innovation will be required to ensure that the mainframe can always be an effective and integral part of an evolving IT infrastructure.
About the survey: More than 300 IT decision makers in ten countries responded to the CA Technologies commissioned survey, "Mainframe - The Ultimate Cloud Platform?"
Contact: http://ow.ly/2PFhY
Contact: http://www.ca.com
In addition, 74 percent of respondents believe that the mainframe will have a role in any cloud computing initiative, and 70 percent agreed that cloud computing will sustain or extend the mainframe environment.
As the mainframe takes center stage in cloud computing environments, organizations will increasingly rely on mainframe management solutions.
Eighty-two percent of respondents reported that they intend to use the mainframe in the future either as much or more than today.
The most pressing issues facing European organizations in the next 12 months is an increased demand for training (cited by 54 percent of respondents).
Comment from Dayton Semerjian, general manager, mainframe, CA Technologies: This survey provides indisputable evidence of the mainframe's agility to perform in new IT models such as cloud computing, and on-going durability as a critical data center platform for decades to come. Ongoing, practical innovation will be required to ensure that the mainframe can always be an effective and integral part of an evolving IT infrastructure.
About the survey: More than 300 IT decision makers in ten countries responded to the CA Technologies commissioned survey, "Mainframe - The Ultimate Cloud Platform?"
Contact: http://ow.ly/2PFhY
Contact: http://www.ca.com
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