Cloud computing is going to become increasingly important to CIOs as they plan their organization’s IT strategy. However, the on-premise data centre isn’t going to disappear. Which begs the question of whether current infrastructure is ready to meet new challenges? IBM surveyed 750 IT executives in 18 countries to find out. How does your organization measure up? Images from Shutterstock.com
Up in the cloud
Asked how unprepared their organization’s IT infrastructure is to face a number of issues, the biggest number that aren’t prepared at all –18 per cent – was for cloud computing. Only 7 per cent said their organization is fully prepared. Still, almost 50 per cent would say their firm is either prepared or moderately prepared for cloud computing.
No score on analytics
Nine per cent said their firm’s IT infrastructure is fully prepared to handle social media, while just over half agreed their organization is either prepared or moderately prepared. On mobile computing, only 4 per cent were confident enough to say they were fully prepared – but 66 per cent thought they were prepared or moderately prepared. As for analytics/big data, no respondent thought their organization was fully prepared, but over 80 per cent though they are prepared or moderately ready.
Cloudy future for some …
Roughly 80 percent of their current workloads run internally, with 20 per cent running on cloud platforms – and that rises to 30 per cent for companies with greater than US$10 billion in revenue. However, when asked about their planned new workloads over the next three to five years, more than half of surveyed organizations (56 per cent) said they don’t know.
… but certainty for others
For those companies that know where they are going on cloud 54 per cent aim to increase their investments in private cloud, versus only 11 per cent looking to decrease it. Similarly, 51 per cent are expecting to increase their investments in hybrid cloud technologies versus 10 per cent looking to spend less. Larger companies expect to increase investments in private and hybrid cloud 73 and 59 per cent, respectively.
Security worries
It might be surprising considering all the news in 2014 about data breaches, but only 43 per cent worry about the ability to maintain secure environment. The top security threat worries range from being compromised internally (48 per cent), threats from social media (41 per cent); back doors inserted by products (38 per cent), malware inserted by products (38 per cent), advanced persistent threats (36 per cent), threats due to mobility/ BYOD (36 per cent); from stolen or lost devices (35 per cent); and from cloud computing (30 per cent).
Big spenders?
On internal infrastructure spending 37 per cent said they’d be putting out up 5 to 10 per cent over the next year to 18 months, 11 per cent said it would be up greater than 10 per cent; 14 per cent said it would be up to 5 per cent. 38 per cent said no change or decrease
