Global IT professionals are creating new job opportunities by increasing collaboration among teams in the data center, and adopting new technologies such as virtualization and cloud computing, but they are also struggling to maintain security and data governance as employees demand more off-site access to networks and information, a study has found.
For example, across the 13 countries in the global study, 52 percent of the IT professionals stated they use or plan to use cloud computing, while much higher cloud adoption rates are predicted in Brazil (70 percent), China (69 percent) and India (76 percent). Across the world, respondents rated the following as their top data center priorities for the next three years: improve agility and speed in deploying business applications (33 percent), better manage resource capacity to align demand and capacity (31 percent), increase data center resilience (19 percent), and reduce power and cooling costs (17 percent).
Workers want flexible access to corporate information from any mobile device, anywhere, anytime, and to the results released in November, which revealed disconnects in worker expectations around information access, IT policies and employee awareness of policies.
Key highlights of the study:
1) Cloud Computing Trends
-- Cloud use today: Across the study's 13 countries, only an average of 18 percent of respondents are using cloud computing today, while an additional 34 percent plan to use the cloud.
-- Top cloud users today: Brazil (27 percent), Germany (27 percent), India (26 percent), U.S. (23 percent) and Mexico (22 percent) top the list of countries that are already taking advantage of cloud computing, exceeding the average (18 percent) across all countries.
-- Future cloud use: A large majority (88 percent) of IT respondents predict that they will be storing some percentage of their company's data and applications in private or public clouds within the next three years.
-- Private clouds: One in three IT professionals said more than half of their company's data and applications will be in private clouds within the next three years. Private cloud adoption was predicted to be higher in Mexico (71 percent), Brazil (53 percent) and the U.S. (46 percent).
-- Timing for public clouds: Of those respondents that will use public clouds, one of every three (34 percent) plan to deploy within one year, and 44 percent predicted their companies would use public clouds within the next two years; 21 percent are expected to do so within two to three years.
2)Virtualization Trends
-- Server virtualization is not yet widespread in production and non-production environments. Only 29 percent of the respondents worldwide have more than half their production servers virtualized, and only 28 percent have more than half of non-production servers virtualized.
-- Top reasons to deploy virtualization: IT professionals cited an increase in IT agility (30 percent) as the top reason, followed by the ability to optimize resources to reduce costs (24 percent) and by faster application provisioning (18 percent).
-- Virtualization inhibitors: The greatest hurdles to virtualization included Security (20 percent), stability concerns (18 percent), difficulty in building operational processes for a virtualized environment (16 percent) and management (16 percent).
-- Virtualization on the rise: The picture changes over the next three years. Almost half of the IT respondents (46 percent) expect that 50 to 100 percent of their production environment servers will be virtualized.
-- IT professionals see big savings from virtualization: Two of five (40 percent) respondents expect a data center cost reduction of between 25 and 49 percent, and another 30 percent expect up to 24 percent in cost savings.
3) Data Center Trends, Concerns, Priorities
-- Top data center concerns: IT managers rated their top data center concerns as security, performance, reliability, and budget for maintenance and management.
-- Top technologies and trends: One out of three IT managers cited mobile access to information as the trend that would most affect the data center, especially in China (47 percent), Brazil (40 percent) and Germany (39 percent). Rated nearly as high were virtualization (32 percent), unified data center fabric (29 percent), desktop virtualization (27 percent) and cloud computing (17 percent).
-- Business trends that will most impact their data centers: IT managers were asked to select all those business trends that would most impact their data center over the next three years. Two out of five (40 percent) stated that increases in applications and data will be the top business trend for the next three years, followed closely by security and risk management (39 percent) and cost reduction (34 percent). Also high on the list were support for a distributed mobile or remote workforce, and a greater use of video and collaboration technologies.
-- Role of the network: About seven of every 10 IT respondents (69 percent) predict an increasing role for the network due to its central position in the data center and its ability to unite and manage resources.
-- Top data center priorities: Worldwide, the top data center priorities for the next three years were to improve agility and speed in deploying business applications (33 percent), better manage resource capacity to align demand and capacity (31 percent), increase data center resilience (19 percent), and reduce power and cooling costs (17 percent).
-- Primary data center strategy: More than one in four IT respondents (28 percent) named a unified data center fabric to unite storage and local area network data traffic as the top technology strategy in their data centers, with 23 percent naming data center virtualization, followed by cloud computing (18 percent), unified computing (17 percent) and desktop virtualization (13 percent).
-- Unified computing: Although unified computing is a very new technology, about one of five (19 percent) IT professionals had already tested or deployed it, while another 41 percent plan to test or deploy a unified computing solution in the next 12 months.
-- Average number of data centers: IT managers indicate that the server capacity of their company is housed at an average of 14 data centers.
4) Data Center Career Opportunities: New Job Roles and Team Collaboration
-- Top career benefits: The trend toward unified data center infrastructure has fostered greater collaboration among formerly separated IT teams and given rise to new training programs, new certifications and new job roles and titles.
-- IT career opportunities: Approximately 50 percent of IT professionals predicted the development of new IT career opportunities over the next three years as a result of cross-training and collaboration among formerly separate teams. More than a quarter (27 percent) cited greater efficiency as the reason for collaboration among IT teams, and 25 percent rated the deployment of new technologies as necessitating closer IT team integration.
-- Career growth: Countries that predicted the greatest development of new IT careers due to cross-training and collaboration were India (59 percent), China (56 percent), Spain (53 percent) and Mexico (53 percent).
-- Job opportunities: Across all countries, 43 percent expect new IT job opportunities opening up due to the latest training and certification programs for data center managers. This was the case especially in China (64 percent) and the U.S. (52 percent).
-- Overall, 41 percent see new career opportunities opening up, with job descriptions and titles such as data center architect and data center manager; leading this trend are China (75 percent) and India (51 percent).
About the study: The study was commissioned by Cisco and conducted by InsightExpress, a third-party market-research firm based in the United States. The study includes two surveys: one on employees, the other on IT professionals. Each survey included 100 respondents in each of the 13 countries, resulting in a survey pool of 2,600 people. The 13 countries were Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States.
Comment from Lew Tucker, Cisco's chief technology officer, cloud computing: The data center is evolving to meet employee expectations for accessing networks, applications and information anywhere at any time with any device. IT professionals worldwide are embracing new technologies such as virtualization, cloud computing, desktop virtualization, and unified data center infrastructure to meet employee expectations while helping their companies meet their businesses goals.
Contact: http://www.cisco.com
Showing posts with label Cisco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cisco. Show all posts
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Consumer Devices, Social Media and Video May Be Causing Company IT Policies To Bend Or Break
There is a disconnect between IT policies and workers, especially as employees strive to work in a more mobile fashion and use numerous devices, social media and new forms of communication such as video, a new survey has found. As technology trends alter the way businesses communicate and operate, more than two-thirds of workers surveyed believed their companies' IT policies could be improved, and at least two of every five (41 percent) said they break those policies to meet their needs.
Key findings:
1. Employee Awareness and Adherence to IT Policies
-- The study revealed that while most companies have IT policies (82 percent), about one in four employees (24 percent) are unaware that such policies exist. An additional 23 percent reported that their companies do not have IT policies on acceptable device usage. When combined, almost half of the workers in the study (47 percent) either do not have an IT policy on device usage or do not know that one exists.
-- For those employees who have an IT policy, 35 percent say IT does not provide an explanation or rationale for why it exists, which can result in apathy, misunderstanding and selective compliance.
-- Among workers aware of IT policy, about two of three (64 percent) feel it could use some improvement. These employees believe policies could be updated to reflect real-world needs and work styles, such as finding an acceptable medium between device usage, social media, mobility and work flexibility.
-- Of those employees who admit to breaking IT policies, about two of every five (41 percent) say it's because they need restricted programs and applications to get the job done -- they're simply trying to be more productive and efficient.
-- One of five (20 percent) employees worldwide said they break IT policy because they believe their company or IT team will not enforce it.
-- This research points to an issue among many businesses worldwide: the need to re-evaluate and update IT policies to align with the growing reality of a workforce that is demanding more enablement to be connected anywhere, anytime, with any device and any information in their work and personal lives.
2. IT Policy Toward Employee Use of Social Media, Devices
-- Social media use is restricted to varying degrees around the world and per company. Although half (51 percent) of the employees surveyed worldwide believe social media, while not work-related, contributes to work-life balance, two of five (41 percent) said they are restricted from using Facebook at their job, and one of three (35 percent) is restricted from using Twitter at work or with work devices.
-- More than one in four (28 percent) workers are restricted from using instant messaging at work or with work devices, and one in five (21 percent) are restricted from doing personal e-mail on work devices and during work hours.
-- Two of every three employees (64 percent) believe their IT teams and companies should loosen up and allow social media use during work hours with work devices, citing work-life balance as a key reason, particularly because many of them can work in a mobile, distributed fashion and put in longer hours as a result.
-- The use of personal devices like iPads and iPhones is also restricted to some degree. Globally, almost one in five (18 percent) employees are not allowed to use their iPods at work, and almost one in five (18 percent) are restricted from using personal devices like employee-owned laptops or phones.
-- The majority of employees (66 percent) believe they should be able to connect freely with any device -- personal or company-issued -- and access the applications and information that they need around the clock. Policy or no policy, many employees will simply do it, raising the question about how effective a policy is and how IT can update, enforce and ensure better compliance.
3. The Rise of Video in the Workplace
-- The use of video is on the rise as a form of consumer and enterprise communication. Globally, more than two-thirds of IT professionals (68 percent) feel that the importance of video communications to their company will increase in the future. This sentiment is particularly true among those in Mexico (85 percent), China (85 percent), Brazil (82 percent), and Spain (82 percent).
-- However, not all employees who wish to use video communications in the workplace are able to do so today. About two in five employees (41percent) said they cannot use video as a communications tool at work, with more than half of employees in the United States (53 percent), the United Kingdom (55 percent), Germany (55 percent) and France (60 percent) not having the capability of using video for workplace communications.
Comment from Marie Hattar, vice president, Borderless Networks, Cisco: The time spent between work and personal lives has blurred. Employees expect to access networks, applications and information anywhere, at any time, on any device. With the expansion of diverse devices in the workplace, along with the growth of video as a favored mode of communication, IT organizations are facing many policy and management demands on their networking infrastructure. The good news is that IT departments can allow employees to be productive and satisfy their desire to socially network on consumer or company-issued devices through the agility and flexibility provided by a Cisco Borderless Network Architecture.
Comment from Nasrin Rezai, senior director, Cisco Security: While most companies have IT policies, employees are not always aware of or knowledgeable about them. For those employees who are cognizant, policies are not always considered up-to-date or reflective of real-world business and lifestyle expectations, and as a result they are broken many times. The Cisco Connected World Report spotlights the disconnect between IT, employees and policies. As workforces become more distributed and the consumerization of IT becomes a fact of mainstream life, the importance of updating appropriate policies to accommodate employee needs while balancing risk and security becomes critical.
About the study: The study was commissioned by Cisco and conducted by InsightExpress, a third-party market research firm based in the United States. Cisco commissioned the study to maintain its understanding of present-day challenges that companies face as they strive to address employee and business needs amid increasing mobility capabilities, security risks, and technologies that can deliver applications and information more ubiquitously -- from virtualized data centers and cloud computing to traditional wired and wireless networks.
Contact: http://www.cisco.com
Key findings:
1. Employee Awareness and Adherence to IT Policies
-- The study revealed that while most companies have IT policies (82 percent), about one in four employees (24 percent) are unaware that such policies exist. An additional 23 percent reported that their companies do not have IT policies on acceptable device usage. When combined, almost half of the workers in the study (47 percent) either do not have an IT policy on device usage or do not know that one exists.
-- For those employees who have an IT policy, 35 percent say IT does not provide an explanation or rationale for why it exists, which can result in apathy, misunderstanding and selective compliance.
-- Among workers aware of IT policy, about two of three (64 percent) feel it could use some improvement. These employees believe policies could be updated to reflect real-world needs and work styles, such as finding an acceptable medium between device usage, social media, mobility and work flexibility.
-- Of those employees who admit to breaking IT policies, about two of every five (41 percent) say it's because they need restricted programs and applications to get the job done -- they're simply trying to be more productive and efficient.
-- One of five (20 percent) employees worldwide said they break IT policy because they believe their company or IT team will not enforce it.
-- This research points to an issue among many businesses worldwide: the need to re-evaluate and update IT policies to align with the growing reality of a workforce that is demanding more enablement to be connected anywhere, anytime, with any device and any information in their work and personal lives.
2. IT Policy Toward Employee Use of Social Media, Devices
-- Social media use is restricted to varying degrees around the world and per company. Although half (51 percent) of the employees surveyed worldwide believe social media, while not work-related, contributes to work-life balance, two of five (41 percent) said they are restricted from using Facebook at their job, and one of three (35 percent) is restricted from using Twitter at work or with work devices.
-- More than one in four (28 percent) workers are restricted from using instant messaging at work or with work devices, and one in five (21 percent) are restricted from doing personal e-mail on work devices and during work hours.
-- Two of every three employees (64 percent) believe their IT teams and companies should loosen up and allow social media use during work hours with work devices, citing work-life balance as a key reason, particularly because many of them can work in a mobile, distributed fashion and put in longer hours as a result.
-- The use of personal devices like iPads and iPhones is also restricted to some degree. Globally, almost one in five (18 percent) employees are not allowed to use their iPods at work, and almost one in five (18 percent) are restricted from using personal devices like employee-owned laptops or phones.
-- The majority of employees (66 percent) believe they should be able to connect freely with any device -- personal or company-issued -- and access the applications and information that they need around the clock. Policy or no policy, many employees will simply do it, raising the question about how effective a policy is and how IT can update, enforce and ensure better compliance.
3. The Rise of Video in the Workplace
-- The use of video is on the rise as a form of consumer and enterprise communication. Globally, more than two-thirds of IT professionals (68 percent) feel that the importance of video communications to their company will increase in the future. This sentiment is particularly true among those in Mexico (85 percent), China (85 percent), Brazil (82 percent), and Spain (82 percent).
-- However, not all employees who wish to use video communications in the workplace are able to do so today. About two in five employees (41percent) said they cannot use video as a communications tool at work, with more than half of employees in the United States (53 percent), the United Kingdom (55 percent), Germany (55 percent) and France (60 percent) not having the capability of using video for workplace communications.
Comment from Marie Hattar, vice president, Borderless Networks, Cisco: The time spent between work and personal lives has blurred. Employees expect to access networks, applications and information anywhere, at any time, on any device. With the expansion of diverse devices in the workplace, along with the growth of video as a favored mode of communication, IT organizations are facing many policy and management demands on their networking infrastructure. The good news is that IT departments can allow employees to be productive and satisfy their desire to socially network on consumer or company-issued devices through the agility and flexibility provided by a Cisco Borderless Network Architecture.
Comment from Nasrin Rezai, senior director, Cisco Security: While most companies have IT policies, employees are not always aware of or knowledgeable about them. For those employees who are cognizant, policies are not always considered up-to-date or reflective of real-world business and lifestyle expectations, and as a result they are broken many times. The Cisco Connected World Report spotlights the disconnect between IT, employees and policies. As workforces become more distributed and the consumerization of IT becomes a fact of mainstream life, the importance of updating appropriate policies to accommodate employee needs while balancing risk and security becomes critical.
About the study: The study was commissioned by Cisco and conducted by InsightExpress, a third-party market research firm based in the United States. Cisco commissioned the study to maintain its understanding of present-day challenges that companies face as they strive to address employee and business needs amid increasing mobility capabilities, security risks, and technologies that can deliver applications and information more ubiquitously -- from virtualized data centers and cloud computing to traditional wired and wireless networks.
Contact: http://www.cisco.com
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