Enterprise Strategy Group X Bill Lundell

2012 IT Spending Intentions Survey

John McKnight — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:39:00 +0000

In order to assess IT spending priorities over the next 12-18 months, ESG recently surveyed 614 senior IT professionals representing midmarket (100 to 999 employees) and enterprise-class (1,000 employees or more) organizations in North America, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific. All respondents were personally responsible for or familiar with their organizations’ 2011 IT spending as well as their 2012 IT budget and spending plans at either an entire organization level or at a business unit/division/branch level.

The survey was designed to answer the following questions:

What business imperatives are currently having the greatest impact on IT spending?
What are organizations’ general spending plans for IT products and services in 2012 and beyond?
How do spending plans vary by organization size, geographic region, industry, and other variables?
What is driving the changes between 2011 spending and 2012 planned spending?
What do organizations identify as their most important IT priorities over the next 12-18 months?
What factors will be most important in justifying IT investments to the business over the next 12-18 months?
Within specific technology segments—such as cloud computing, virtualization, storage, networking, and security—which initiatives and technologies will sustain investment over the next 12-18 months?
What is the relationship between an organization’s current and future IT spending and its overall purchasing pattern for IT products and services?

Survey participants represented a wide range of industries including manufacturing, financial services, health care, communications and media, retail, government, and business services.

For more information on the contents and findings of this report, please download the executive summary below.

ESG Research Report 2012 IT Spending Intentions Executive Summary

Data Center Networking Trends

Jon Oltsik — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:25:15 +0000

The primary objective of this ESG research study was to survey networking professionals working at enterprise organizations (i.e., 1,000 employees or more) in order to better understand the changes taking place in their data centers, how these changes were impacting their network infrastructure and operations, how they were addressing data center networking challenges in the short-term, and what they were planning for data center networking as they looked to future business and technical requirements.

To assess these issues, ESG asked 280 networking professionals to respond to questions in areas including:

Data center strategy
- How many data centers do large organizations have today?
- Are large organizations consolidating data centers? If so, how many data centers do they hope to eliminate? Are they consolidating discrete business unit data centers into multi-tenant mega-centers?
- Are they extending applications or IT operations across multiple data centers? If so, which specific applications and IT operations activities are being extended?
- Is server virtualization a substantial component of their data center strategy? How will the use of server virtualization change in the future?
Data center networking environment
- What types of data center networking architectures are in place today?
- How are networks segmented? Why is some segmentation done at Layer 2 and some at Layer 3?
- What is the standard server-to-network interface today? How will this change in the future?
- What is the standard data center network cabling infrastructure today? How will this change in the future?
- How is networking equipment provisioned and managed?
- What is the role of virtual switches today? How will this change?
- What is the impact of web applications on data center networks?
Data center networking operations challenges
- What types of network operations problems do large organizations face today?
- What are the biggest network operations challenges?
- Which network operations activities are most costly and time consuming?
Data center networking adaptation
- How is the networking organization changing to adjust to data center scaling and operational requirements?
- Are large organizations adopting new data center networking technologies? If so, which ones?
- Are enterprises implementing converged data center networks (i.e. common network for storage and data traffic)? If so, why and how?
- What changes are taking place in order to support more server-to-server web application traffic within the data center?
Data center networking strategy
- Which data center networking technology innovations are users aware of?
- Are enterprises interested in data center network fabric architecture? Will they implement data center network fabrics over time?

For more information on the contents and findings of this report, please download the executive summary below.

ESG Research Report Data Center Networking Trends Executive Summary

Click the picture for a PDF of the Data Center Networking Infographic.

Research Brief: Reference Research: Total Production Databases

Julie Lockner — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:31:48 +0000

ESG Reference Research includes data-centric reports and briefs designed for market intelligence, marketing, product marketing/management, engineering, and corporate strategy professionals at IT vendor organizations. ESG’s Reference Research content is designed to assist in market segmentation, market sizing, product requirements analysis, and other business planning exercises. This Reference Research brief focuses on the total number of production databases supported by large midmarket and enterprise organizations and includes analysis of production databases by number of employees, total amount of database data, total annual revenue, and industry.

Research Brief: Reference Research: Database Data Volume Trends

Julie Lockner — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:23:05 +0000

ESG Reference Research includes data-centric reports and briefs designed for market intelligence, marketing, product marketing/management, engineering, and corporate strategy professionals at IT vendor organizations. ESG’s Reference Research content is designed to assist in market segmentation, market sizing, product requirements analysis, and other business planning exercises. This Reference Research brief focuses on the total amount of data stored in databases at large midmarket and enterprise organizations and includes analysis of database data by number of employees, number of production databases, total annual revenue, and industry.

Research Brief: Remote Knowledge Worker Trends

Jon Oltsik — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:08:32 +0000

Recent ESG research indicates that the remote worker population will grow significantly over the next three years. Why? Organizations see ROI on remote worker programs in terms of cost reduction, higher employee morale, and improved productivity. While these are attractive benefits, ESG believes that today’s laissez-faire remote worker programs have plenty of room for improvement from both a business and technology perspective.

Solid-state Storage Market Trends

Mark Peters — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:43:55 +0000

In order to assess the market trends involving the current usage and potential adoption of solid-state storage, ESG recently surveyed 223 IT decision-makers responsible for data storage at enterprise-class (i.e., 1,000 or more employees) organizations that either currently use solid-state storage or are considering using the technology. Respondents were familiar with their organization’s current storage environment as well as forward-looking strategies involving solid-state storage technologies.

The survey was designed to answer the following questions:

What concerns do potential adopters, as well as those with no plans to deploy solid-state storage, have with regard to the technology? Similarly, what challenges have current users experienced?
What solid-state storage implementation types have current users deployed? If they plan to make additional purchases, will they use the same technology? What do potential adopters expect to use?
What drove initial deployments of solid-state storage? How does this vary—if at all—among potential adopters?
How extensive are current solid-state storage deployments?
What benefits have current users of solid-state storage derived from the technology? What benefits do potential adopters expect to realize?
Are current and future solid-state storage purchases being driven by the need to alleviate the performance challenges associated with any specific application(s)? Which applications?
What impact—if any—has server virtualization had on current and potential deployments of solid-state storage?
What is the relationship—if any—between automated tiered storage and solid-state storage?
How do current and potential users view the longer-term opportunity for solid-state storage?
How important is the brand of the underlying solid-state storage components, and does it impact purchase decisions?

Survey participants represented a wide range of industries including manufacturing, financial services, communications and media, health care, retail, government, and business services.

For more information on the contents and findings of this report, please download the executive summary below.

ESG Research Report Solid-state Storage Market Trends Executive Summary

Application Retirement Trends

Bill Lundell — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:40:20 +0000

In order to assess current data management trends, as well as plans for the next 12-18 months, ESG recently surveyed 270 North American IT professionals representing large midmarket (500 to 999 employees) and enterprise-class (1,000 employees or more) organizations. Respondents were familiar with their organization’s current database and legacy application environment, as well as forward-looking plans application retirement.

For the purposes of this survey, “legacy applications” were defined as applications that are no longer used to support active business processes.

The survey was designed to answer the following questions:

How many legacy applications do organizations currently support?
What gives an application legacy status?
Why do organizations keep legacy applications running?
How much does it cost organizations annually to maintain legacy applications?
Do organizations have plans to decommission applications over the next 12-18 months?
What methods do organizations employ to retain decommissioned application data?
Which functional groups are involved with application decommissioning projects?

Survey participants represented a wide range of industries including manufacturing, financial services, communications and media, health care, and retail.

For more information on the contents and findings of this report, please download the executive summary below.

ESG Research Report Application Retirement Trends Executive Summary

ESG Research Brief: WAN Optimization Usage at Remote/Branch Offices

Bob Laliberte — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:10:35 +0000

ESG research indicates that companies face significant challenges when it comes to delivering applications over the WAN from a central location to employees at remote office/branch office (ROBO) locations. In addition to frustrated workers, performance and availability issues can lead to dissatisfaction among customers and, ultimately, missed opportunities and lost revenue. Fortunately, ESG research validates that WAN optimization technology is helping firms improve application performance for distributed sites, and can be an attractive cost-saving alternative to purchasing more WAN bandwidth, especially for organizations supporting large numbers of ROBO locations.

ROBO Priorities and Challenges Highlight the Need for WAN Optimization

ESG recently surveyed 454 IT professionals with in-depth knowledge of their organization’s remote and branch office IT operations.[1] As part of this research, ROBO decision makers were asked to identify their priorities with respect to supporting these locations (see Figure 1). With many organizations consolidating applications in corporate data centers, delivering applications quickly and effectively over the WAN is clearly a main concern as nearly half of respondents (48%) cited improving application performance and 38% noted improving application accessibility for end-users. Other high ranking responses included improving the ability to share files and collaborate with others as well as reducing WAN connectivity expenses.

Figure 1. Top Five IT Priorities for Supporting ROBO Locations

When asked about specific challenges encountered in the process of delivering applications and IT services from a centralized location over the WAN to ROBOs, respondents cited poor application performance (45%), slow transfer speed (41%), and the cost of WAN bandwidth (35%) as their top three trouble spots (see Figure 2). As the amount of data created by organizations continues to increase, these challenges will only intensify. ESG believes this all reflects the need for organizations with remote locations to focus more effort on improving and optimizing WAN performance.

Figure 2. Challenges Delivering Applications/IT Services Over the WAN to ROBOs

Why do businesses place such an emphasis on being able to deliver ROBO applications over the WAN in a timely manner? As shown in Figure 3, more than half (55%) of ROBO decision makers cite dissatisfied users as the most common business impact of challenges with application delivery, but there is much more at stake than unhappy employees. Indeed, application downtime and dissatisfied customers pose a far more significant threat to the business.

Table 1 reflects the business impact of challenges faced when delivering IT services over the WAN to remote/branch offices, analyzed by an organization’s total number of remote locations. Given that many remote offices act as the face of the business to customers (i.e., retail stores, bank branches, medical clinics, etc.), it is not surprising that companies with more than ten ROBOs tend to see more dissatisfied customers and/or a direct loss of revenue as a result of network challenges as compared to those with ten or fewer ROBOs. Furthermore, organizations with 50 or more ROBOs are twice as likely to cite missed business opportunities as an issue than those with ten or fewer (22% vs.11%).

Figure 3. Business Impact of Challenges Delivering Applications/IT Services Over the WAN to ROBO

Table 1. Business Impact of Challenges Delivering Applications/IT Services Over the WAN to ROBOs, by Number of ROBO Locations

WAN Optimization – A Proven Solution

With so many business considerations dependent upon WAN performance and availability, it should come as no surprise that many companies have already taken action to alleviate their WAN pain points. Figure 4 shows that, overall, more organizations have upgraded network equipment (60%) and bought additional WAN bandwidth (45%)—compared to those that have purchased WAN optimization technology (31%)—as a means of optimizing WAN traffic flow between corporate headquarters sites and ROBO locations. However, WAN optimization usage is much more concentrated in organizations with more ROBO locations. Specifically, organizations with 50 or more ROBOs are more than twice as likely as those with ten or fewer ROBOs to have purchased new WAN optimization technologies (see Table 2). Since WAN bandwidth is vital to a centralized application delivery model, and WAN connectivity expenses are a concern for many leveraging this type of strategy, it follows that organizations with more ROBOs would look to optimize the network connections between these sites and headquarters locations in an effort to minimize costs. This, however, does not mean that organizations with fewer locations would not also benefit from leveraging WAN optimization technology.

Figure 4. Steps to Improve Application/IT Service Delivery via WAN

Table 2. Use of WAN Optimization Technology to Improve the Delivery of Corporate Applications and/or IT Services, by Number of ROBO Locations

Those respondents that identified new WAN optimization purchases as a strategy to improve application and data delivery to ROBOs from a central location were then asked about the benefits their organization derived from implementing the technology. As shown in Figure 5, more than half of organizations cited improvements in performance, whether in the form of application response time (61%) or file transfer speeds (54%). Other key benefits include improved application and data accessibility (47%) and quality (36%), as well as a reduction in the amount of data traversing the WAN (36%). These benefits are consistent with most marketing messages from today’s WAN optimization vendors and thus help to validate their claims.

Figure 5. Benefits Realized as a Result of Purchasing New WAN Technology

The Bigger Truth

As organizations continue to consolidate and centralize applications, they place more pressure on WAN connectivity to deliver business applications and data to remote/branch office locations. This increased dependence on the WAN will only grow as organizations opt to deliver applications to remote sites via SaaS or other cloud-based distribution models, especially if the distance to the third-party site exceeds the distance to their own data center(s). Additionally, with more emphasis being placed on a remote and mobile workforce, the ability to optimize connectivity to individual employees—regardless of location—will also be a top priority.

While it is clear that organizations face real challenges delivering applications over the WAN, ESG’s research also points to compelling reasons to investigate WAN optimization as a solution. In fact, many respondents leveraging the technology reported that it has served to address a number of their top performance-related challenges. For potential adopters, it is important to note that vendors are supplying WAN optimization solutions in a variety of form factors. Specifically, the technology can be consumed as a physical or virtual appliance, delivered as a service, or, in some cases, integrated with existing network routing gear. Bottom line: instead of buying additional WAN bandwidth and being locked into a multi-year service provider contract, organizations should look to fully optimize the bandwidth they currently have via the prudent use of WAN optimization technology.

[1] Source: ESG Research Report, Remote Office/Branch Office Technology Trends, July 2011.

e-Discovery Market Trends: A View from the Legal Department

Brian Babineau — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:48:53 +0000

In order to assess the state of enterprise e-discovery operations and priorities over 2011 and beyond, ESG recently surveyed 48 general counsel representing large midmarket (500 to 999 employees) and enterprise-class (1,000 employees or more) organizations. All respondents were personally responsible for or familiar with their organizations’ 2010 legal services and e-discovery spending, as well as their 2011 budget and spending plans at either an organizational or a business unit/division/branch level.

Specifically, the survey asked the following questions with respect to e-discovery and legal services:

What are current trends in the volume of corporate legal or regulatory matters, and the percentage of those involving electronically stored information (ESI)?
What is the internal strategy for corporations in managing e-discovery processes among cross-functional business units? Who leads decision-making in both internal and outsourced resourcing?
What are current corporate expenses associated with e-discovery, as well as for legal services in general? Is performance being tracked, measured, or evaluated in terms of outcomes, and how?
What are corporate selection criteria for law firms and legal service providers? What are customer priorities in service delivery?
To what extent are corporate litigants performing e-discovery internally, and how? What are their greatest challenges in the process? What provisions are they making for court defensibility?
Which e-discovery technology and methods are corporate litigants using, planning to adopt, or rejecting?
What are the most important go-forward priorities within the enterprise for internal e-discovery and better overall litigation preparedness?

Survey participants represented a wide range of industries including manufacturing, financial services, communications and media, health care, retail, government, and business services.

For more information on the contents and findings of this report, please download the executive summary below.

ESG Research Report e-Discovery Market Trends Executive Summary

The Impact of Big Data on Data Analytics

Bill Lundell — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:34:38 +0000

In order to assess current data analytics and data management trends, as well as plans for the next 12-18 months, ESG recently surveyed 270 North American IT professionals representing large midmarket (500 to 999 employees) and enterprise-class (1,000 employees or more) organizations. Respondents were familiar with their organization’s current database environment as well as forward-looking strategies involving data analytics and integration initiatives.

The survey was designed to answer the following questions:

How important is the enhancement of data analytics capabilities relative to all of an organization’s IT priorities?
What challenges do organizations face with respect to their current data analytics technologies and processes?
How do organizations plan to deal with larger data sets during data analytics exercises?
What are organizations’ spending plans for data analytics in 2011 and beyond?
How are organizations planning to address their data analytics and data integration challenges?
What is driving the adoption or need for a MapReduce compute platform?
What challenges do organizations face with respect to their data integration needs?
How does data growth impact organizations in general?

Survey participants represented a wide range of industries including manufacturing, financial services, communications and media, health care, and retail.

Click for a PDF of the ESG Infographic: Big Data.

For more information on the contents and findings of this report, please download the executive summary below.

ESG Research Report The Impact of Big Data on Data Analytics Executive Summary