Western European Private Cloud Infrastructure Growth

The detractors of cloud computing benefits will state that the typical adoption is still limited at most enterprises -- they're deploying cloud services to a few early-adopters. That being said, some leading markets are confidently moving ahead with mainstream deployments, regardless of the caution. While others, such as western Europe, are apparently in transition.

The western European private cloud market will grow at a CAGR of 23.2 percent for the next five years to reach $7.9 billion in 2016, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC).

IDC has been looking in-depth at the private cloud marketplace -- from a hardware, software, services and networking points of view.

"The growth of private cloud is even more impressive in the context of the current economic situation," said Mette Ahorlu, research director, IDC European Services.

According to IDC's assessment, demand in the region is being driven by the need for cost savings and efficiency and with a longer perspective of creating increased flexibility, and is across the board -- from hardware, to software, to management, networking and services.

Creating a private cloud has an impact on all aspects of IT infrastructure.

Key findings from the market study include:

• Most enterprises are still in early phases of cloud adoption, typically testing out cloud and perhaps rolling out one or a few cloud services to the full range of relevant users, but not deploying cloud on a really large scale.
• There is growing interest in pre-packaged private clouds, pre-configured with servers, storage, network and management that speed up implementation and reduce need for services.
• The cloud computing approach is to become a critical part of the IT strategy for the majority of EMEA organizations in the next two to three years.
• While security, compliance and data location are barriers to public cloud they become drivers for the adoption of the private cloud.
• Partnering between technology companies and service companies is important to help create transparency in a complex market where clients think there are too many moving parts.
• Hosted private cloud is not nearly as popular as clouds on customers' premises, but hosted private cloud will grow even faster and revenue will exceed on-premises clouds by 2016.
• While the market is serviced by traditional IT providers and outsourcing companies, telecom service providers have also seen it as a great opportunity to expand their businesses.

IDC believes that managed cloud services is fundamentally a network-based offering. It's becoming an established commodity, scales to a mass market customer base, and builds on the kind of support or billing relationships that telecom service providers are capable of offering.

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Enterprise Mobile Benchmark Study Offers Guidance

A comprehensive enterprise mobile device and application strategy, if executed correctly, can become a significant competitive advantage. But, there's a growing need for answers to the questions troubling many IT executives -- with regard to their mobile device policies, the adoption of media tablets, and mobile application development costs and practices.

According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), corporate-liable devices still prevail with 77 percent of survey respondent organizations providing smartphones to their employees and 49 percent providing media tablets in 2011.

Of these corporate-liable devices, 70 percent were purchased by the organization and issued to the employees while only 7 percent were purchased by the employee with full or partial reimbursement.

The goal of the study, based on responses from CIOs and IT professionals in the U.S. and Europe, is to provide IT organizations with insight into how their peers have addressed similar mobility issues.

Highlights from the IDC Mobile Benchmark Study include:

• Employees in executive, sales, IT, and marketing job functions are more often issued a smartphone over other functions within an organization.
• For corporate-liable smartphones, most organizations (73 percent) pay the entire mobile service bill (voice and data) directly to the mobile service provider. Similarly, 71 percent of organizations pay the entire mobile service plan for corporate-liable tablets.
• To mitigate risk and support costs of letting employees bring their own devices, 45 percent of the respondents provide limited IT help desk support for business applications on individual-liable smartphones, while 42 percent report they provide limited IT help desk support for business applications on individual-liable tablets.
• In both cases, hardware issues are relayed back to the mobile service provider. In 33 percent of the organizations surveyed, no support is provided for individual-liable smartphones and 44 percent of respondents reported no support for individual-liable tablets.
• Surprisingly, a high percent of respondents reported they expect tablets will be a second device to the traditional laptop/desktop PC.
• The notion that tablets would be treated as second devices to laptops -- and refreshed every 2.5 years -- will be costly for IT organizations in the long run. IDC estimates it will cost the average large organization an additional 1 percent of their IT budget every year just to refresh these media tablets.

"Many IT organizations are currently working through their mobile device strategy and policy issues. To be successful, IDC recommends that IT executives establish a governance committee including finance, HR, and Legal to outline a comprehensive Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy, including use policies and cost allocation methods," said Meredith Whalen, senior vice president, IT Executive & Industry Research, IDC.

Most importantly, IDC recommends that IT executives identify the costs associated with developing and supporting multiple mobile platforms, and apply a governance strategy to mobile application development efforts to ensure projects are prioritized based on the highest value add to the enterprise.

IDC's Mobile Benchmark Study was designed to address the biggest questions IT executives are facing around their mobile device policies, including tablet adoption and mobile application development costs and practices.

The study surveyed 52 CIOs and senior IT professionals in the U.S. and Europe during the months of September 2011 and November 2011. Ms. Whalen provides a summary the study findings in the following brief video presentation.

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Cloud Service Usage Now Mainstream in UK and Ireland

The increased uptake in cloud service adoption is truly a worldwide phenomenon. New research published by Cisco Systems demonstrates the dramatic shift in attitudes towards cloud services in the UK and Ireland.

The report -- entitled "Cisco CloudWatch 2012" -- is the second in Cisco's annual Cloud series and finds IT decision makers in a bullish mood, increasingly placing applications and services from across their business into the cloud and planning for further investment over the coming 12 months.

Furthermore, the message that cloud services can deliver significant cost reduction is now resonating within the IT community -- cost saving has become a top driver for adopting cloud applications.

Granted, security remains the number one concern when migrating services and applications to the cloud. But that concern is noticeably less pronounced than in last year's report.

The use of public cloud is up 11 percent, although private cloud still dominates.

Key findings of the market study include:

• IT decision makers say that cloud is now on their agenda -- a resounding 90 percent up from just 52 percent in 2011.
• Of this number, 31 percent consider cloud as being critical and underpinning much of the organizations' activity (this was just 7 percent in 2011).
• Of those organizations where cloud is on the agenda, 85 percent are planning further investment in the next twelve months.
• In CloudWatch 2011, reducing cost ranked fifth in a list of most important things when considering cloud -- in today's report it ranks as the number one priority.
• 20 percent reduction in concerns over security (52 percent in 2012 compared to 72 percent in 2011).
• 54 percent of respondents currently use private cloud (up from 34 percent in 2011) and public cloud usage is up from 18 percent in 2011 to 29 percent in 2012

Cisco commissioned independent research amongst IT decision makers across a broad range of vertical sectors including retail, finance, healthcare, public sector and service provider.

The results clearly show that cloud has moved from hype to reality, with cloud now seen as a mainstream element of IT strategy.

"This new report validates a shift that many of us in the IT industry have been witnessing first hand over the last 6-12 months. Cloud usage has now gone mainstream. After several years of ‘hype' across the IT industry, it now seems that cloud is maturing and organizations across a broad range of sectors are realizing the benefits of moving to a cloud model, said Ian Foddering, Chief Technology Officer and Technical Director, Cisco UK and Ireland.

Foddering continues, "Against this backdrop it's encouraging to see progressive companies realize the potential of cloud to revolutionize their respective industries. All these signs point towards a well-established market where the previously blurred boundaries of cloud computing are clearing. IT decision makers now more educated about the distinctions between cloud and managed services and more willing to invest."

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Top 10 BYOD and Virtualization Market Insights

Like it or not, some enterprises have already entered a post-PC world -- where their business communication network must accommodate new user-driven choices. These include traditional applications, mobile apps, social apps and operating systems; various server architectures; and an array of mobile devices ranging from smartphones to tablets and other mobility tools. Are you experiencing this phenomenon? If not, you will soon. Moreover, this latest business technology trend has huge ramifications.

Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) conducted extensive research and analysis to uncover key insights about BYOD (“bring your own device”) and desktop virtualization trends in U.S. enterprises. The Cisco IBSG Horizons BYOD and Virtualization study surveyed 600 enterprise IT leaders from 18 industries.

The Top 10 Market Insights

Insight 1: Mobility Is Pervasive

• Seventy-eight percent of U.S. white-collar employees use a mobile device (e.g., laptop, smartphone, or tablet) for work purposes.
• Respondents indicated that 65 percent of white-collar workers in their organizations require mobile connectivity to do their jobs.
• Forty-four percent of knowledge workers telecommute at least once per week.
• Cisco IBSG estimates that telecommuting once a week saves $2,500 per employee annually.

Insight 2: Growth of Mobility Has Impacted IT Profoundly

• By 2014, the average number of connected devices per knowledge worker will reach 3.3, up from an average of 2.8 in 2012 (18 percent increase).
• On average, mobility initiatives will consume 20 percent of IT budgets in 2014, compared to 17 percent in 2012.

Insight 3: How Much Longer Will Traditional Funding Models Exist?

• Sixty-two percent of respondents’ organizations pay for both employees’ devices and their voice/data plans.
• Seventy-five percent of respondents expect the share of employee-owned devices connected to company networks to increase “somewhat” to “significantly” over the next two years.
• Forty-one percent of respondents indicated a majority of smartphones connecting to their company network are actually employee-owned.
• According to Cisco IBSG, employees are willing to invest to improve their work experience. Cisco BYOD employees, for example, pay an average of $600 for their preferred devices.

Insight 4: BYOD Is Here, and It’s Not a Bad Thing

• Eighty-eight percent of surveyed IT leaders perceive growing technology “consumerization” in the enterprise.
• Seventy-six percent consider consumerization “somewhat” or “extremely” positive for their companies.

Insight 5: BYOD Delivers Several Benefits to the Enterprise

• Among respondents, the top two perceived benefits of BYOD were improved employee productivity (more opportunities to collaborate) and greater job satisfaction.
• The benefits of BYOD vary based on an employee’s role and work requirements. Cisco IBSG estimates that the annual benefits from BYOD range from $300 to $1,300, depending on the employee’s job role.

Insight 6: BYOD Does Bring Its Share of Challenges

• Respondents cited the top challenges of BYOD as (1) ensuring security/privacy of company data and (2) providing IT support for multiple mobile platforms.
• Thirty-six percent of respondents said that their organizations’ IT departments provide full support for employee-owned devices connected to the company network, with an additional 48 percent indicating that their IT departments support selected devices. Eleven percent said that their companies tolerate employee-owned devices but don’t support them, and just 5 percent said their organizations forbid employee-owned devices.
• According to Cisco IBSG, 86 percent of BYOD costs are non-hardware-related, highlighting the importance of choosing the right governance and support models to control these costs.

Insight 7: Employees Want To Control Their Work Experience

• Employees are turning to BYOD because they want more control of their work experience, thus improving productivity and job satisfaction.
• Forty percent of respondents cited “device choice” as their top BYOD priority (the ability to use their favorite device — anywhere).
• Respondents’ second BYOD priority is the desire to perform personal activities at work, and work activities during personal time.
• Employees also want to bring their own applications to work. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said that unapproved applications — especially social networks, cloud-based email, and instant messaging — are somewhat to much more prevalent today than two years ago.

Insight 8: Desktop Virtualization Is on the Rise

• Desktop virtualization enables employees to enjoy a similar experience across a broad range of devices — from desktop and laptop PCs to smartphones and tablets. This capability is alternately referred to as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), hosted virtual desktop (HVD), desktop as a service (DaaS), and server-based computing.
• Eighty percent of respondents indicated that they are “very aware” of desktop virtualization, and 18 percent said they are “somewhat aware.”
• Sixty-eight percent of respondents agreed that a majority of knowledge worker roles are suitable for desktop virtualization.
• Fifty percent noted that their organization is in the process of implementing a desktop virtualization strategy.

Insight 9: Desktop Virtualization Also Poses Challenges

• While 70 percent of IT leaders recognize that half or more of their organization’s employees could benefit from desktop virtualization, they also expressed some concerns.
• Respondents’ top concern (33 percent) was data protection — ensuring that only the right people have access to sensitive company and customer data. The No. 2 concern was business continuity — the ability to continue operations under adverse conditions, such as interruptions due to natural or man-made hazards.

Insight 10: Desktop Virtualization Will Impact Much of the Business

• Desktop virtualization is already making its mark and will continue to have a significant impact on enterprise business. Survey respondents noted the following as the three areas that will benefit most from desktop virtualization: (1) business continuity, (2) employee productivity, and (3) IT costs.
• Among devices, respondents listed their top desktop virtualization priorities as laptops (81 percent), desktops (76 percent), smartphones (64 percent), and tablets (60 percent).
• Survey respondents stated that the top four job roles being targeted for desktop virtualization are (1) field-/customer-facing employees, (2) employees who handle sensitive company data, (3) employees who work from home frequently, and (4) executives.
• Desktop virtualization and BYOD are changing the way applications are provisioned to employees. For example, 35 percent of respondents said that employees can download only pre-approved applications from the company app store, while 23 percent indicated that both approved and nonstandard applications are available from the company app store.

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Market Insights on the Pending Business Tablet Invasion

Here's the scenario, you're a busy executive working away from your office and you just want to quickly research something on the Web. You turn on the company-provided notebook computer and you wait the standard 3-6 minute delay, before you can actually use it.

The corporate IT department has numerous mandatory processes that must load first -- such as virus protection, data backup, system and app software updates, etc. -- on a typical Windows system. That's often dozens of processes running at start-up, and some will consume 100 percent of the available processing power.

That automated cycle can temporarily incapacitate a notebook PC. Don't bother attempting to load a web browser while this PC start-up sequence is in motion. What's the alternative? If you have a media tablet, simply use it instead and you're on the Web in a matter of seconds.

Mobile Workers and Their Virtual Workspace

Is your company prepared for the pending business tablet invasion that will likely raise the bar of expectations for corporate mobile computing? Ready or not, this trend is already in motion. Cisco announced findings from a global survey of IT managers' perceptions about tablet form-factor mobile devices in the enterprise.

Cisco commissioned Redshift Research to perform a market study to assess attitudes, fears and hopes for media tablets in the workplace from a survey of more than 1500 IT managers and executives in the U.S., Canada, UK, France, Germany and Spain. While it's still considered a nascent market, this year we'll surely see an increase in the adoption of business-oriented tablet computing.

Key findings from the market study include:

Media Tablet Demand

• Tablets vs. smartphones: which win? Globally, IT departments report employees place one tablet request for every three smartphone requests today.
• Which countries lead? Of the countries surveyed, the US and France are tied for tops -- each report a tablet is requested by 21% of the workforce. Senior executives are most likely to be issued a tablet in the US (38%) and least likely to be issued one in the UK (27 percent).
• Who's most excited? Spain tops the list, with 90% of IT managers believing the tablet will become more popular in the next two years.
• "Uber-connected sales guys". Tablets are significantly more prevalent among salespeople in Germany (31%) than in all other countries (21% on average).

IT Manager Fears And Wants

• Tops in security concerns? The U.S., the country with the most experience managing tablets, also ranks #1 on the "security issue": 75% of US IT managers said new rules must be established around security and device usage.
• What about app access? Nearly half (48%) of all IT managers surveyed agree that access to company applications should be restricted for all employees. Canada and UK were the top countries in wanting to see restricted access on tablet form-factor devices (55% and 56 %, respectively).
• Custom apps? IT managers universally agree that custom tablet applications would benefit their business.
• Top "want list" features? Globally, three-quarters of IT managers indicated email and document sharing are "must haves". About half agreed or strongly agreed that these are desirable: video conferencing, IM, access to company databases and seamless synchronization with other business devices.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

• Turning a blind eye to BYOD. Globally, 48% said their company would never authorize employees to bring their own devices to work, yet 57% agreed that some employees use personal devices without consent.
• 51% of the respondents reported the number of employees bringing their own devices to work is on the rise.
• Using personal devices without consent was highest in the US (64%) and lowest in Germany (49%).
• Access to company servers was highlighted as a "huge problem" of the "bring your own device" to work phenomena as was lost/stolen devices (64% globally).
• Globally, 44% say that handling BYOD issues diverts IT attention from other important projects.

"Mobile workers and virtual workspaces are here to stay -- but so are the demands on IT to continue to ensure enterprise-grade security, manageability and interoperability. 2012 promises to be an exciting year and IT leaders are a critical component in unleashing innovation and enabling organizations to take advantage of the next wave of business growth and opportunity. Cisco is keenly focused on helping its customers navigate the post-PC era and transform their business," said Tom Puorro, director of product management, IPCBU, Cisco Systems.

Survey respondents were from a wide variety of global companies and are either primary IT decision makers or play a key role in the procurement process. Sole proprietors were excluded from the study. Field work was conducted in late 2011.

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Cloud Storage Spending to Reach $22.6 Billion by 2015

Cloud computing demand will drive new IT spending over the next five years, as public cloud service providers and the adopters of private cloud solutions invest in the supporting infrastructure, according to a recent market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Therefore, the leading managed cloud service providers have been busy expanding their service delivery platforms.

Overall spending by public cloud service providers on storage hardware, software, and professional services will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.6 percent from 2010 to 2015, while enterprise spending on storage for the private cloud will experience a CAGR of 28.9 percent. By 2015, combined spending for public and private cloud storage will be $22.6 billion worldwide.

"Despite current economic uncertainties, IDC expects cloud service providers -- both public and private -- to be among the most expansive spenders on IT products and services as they continue to build out their facilities worldwide and expand their service options," said Richard Villars, vice president, Storage Systems & Executive Strategies at IDC.

According to the IDC assessment, the most significant driver of storage consumption over the past three years has been the emergence of public cloud-based application and infrastructure providers. Many of these service providers act as content depots -- gathering, organizing, and providing access to large quantities of digital content.

Meanwhile, other cloud-based service providers have emerged with a focus on delivering IT infrastructure and applications in an "as a service" model. Collectively these companies have undertaken massive storage buildouts as they have expanded their service offerings, entered new markets, and extended their geographic reach.

In parallel to the expansion of the public cloud, many organizations have started to deploy their own private clouds for application, compute, and archival storage. Some of these private cloud deployments -- government and research sites -- are comparable in scope and complexity to public cloud environments, while others are limited in scope.

 Five information requirements are driving storage demands:

• Enabling more efficient delivery of information/applications to Internet-based customers.
• Reducing upfront infrastructure investment levels (i.e., cutting the cost and time associated with deploying new IT and compute infrastructure).
• Minimizing internal IT infrastructure investment associated with "bursty" or unpredictable workloads.
• Lowering and/or distributing the ongoing costs associated with long-term archiving of information.
• Enabling near-continuous, real-time analysis of large volumes and wide varieties of customer-, partner-, and machine-generated data (Big Data).

To meet these diverse requirements, IDC believes that organizations will continue to demand access to low-cost storage capacity -- plus a growing range of complementary advanced data transformation, security, and analytics solutions.

"The challenge facing the storage industry will be to balance public cloud service providers' demand for low-cost hardware while boosting demand for advanced software solutions in areas such as object-based storage, automated data tiering, Big Data processing, and advanced archiving services," noted Villars.

"Big Data developments will be perhaps the most critical new marketplace for storage solutions providers in the coming decade. Providing a strong portfolio of complete Big Data solutions -- hardware, software, and implementation services -- will be a high priority to succeed. Similarly, a strong portfolio of active archival storage solutions will be a critical differentiator for private content or archive cloud deployments."

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Cloud Services are Instrumental to IT Transformation

According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), cloud computing will continue to reshape the business technology landscape over the next five years -- as spending on public cloud services expands at a CAGR of 27.6 percent, from $21.5 billion in 2010 to $72.9 billion in 2015.

That said, apparently the trend and resulting impact of cloud services will extend well beyond information technology (IT) spending. Managed cloud services are a critical component in a much larger transformation that IDC expects will be instrumental in driving IT industry growth for the next 25 years.

"Cloud services are interconnected with and accelerated by other disruptive technologies, including mobile devices, wireless networks, big data analytics, and social networking," said Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC.

This collective group of technologies are merging into the industry's third major platform for long-term growth. Similar to the mainframe and PC eras, managed cloud services promises to radically expand the applications of IT infrastructure, resulting in a variety of unified service delivery solutions.

As a critical component to the third platform, cloud services represent a strategic growth area for traditional managed IT services and broadband service providers.

A Pathway Through the Disruptive Transformation

With spending for public IT cloud services growing at more than four times the rate of the worldwide IT market as whole, IDC expects one of every seven dollars spent on packaged software, servers, and storage offerings in 2015 will be related to the public cloud model.

Moreover, the eventual winners of the ongoing competition within the managed cloud service delivery marketplace will likely be the new business productivity trend leaders.

Highlights from IDC's latest market study include:

• In 2015, public cloud services will account for 46 percent of net new growth in overall IT spending in five key product categories -- applications, application development and deployment, systems infrastructure software, basic storage, and servers.
• Software-oriented cloud services (SaaS) will account for roughly three quarters of all spending on public cloud IT services throughout the forecast. This includes all three software-oriented cloud categories, not just applications. Spending on hardware-oriented cloud services (servers and storage) will be largely driven by SaaS providers building out their infrastructure.
• The United States will dominate overall spending throughout the forecast period, with nearly 50 percent of all public IT cloud services revenues coming from the U.S. in 2015. But regions outside the U.S. will show much stronger growth as cloud services adoption accelerates.
• In particular, IDC found that there are more cloud services vendors and greater end user spending in Asia-Pacific and Western Europe than previously thought.
• IDC defines public IT cloud services as those offerings designed for, and commercially offered to, a largely unrestricted marketplace of potential users. The forecast does not include revenue from private cloud deployments, which are dedicated to a specific customer.
•  While private clouds provide businesses with the ability to specify access limitations and the level of resource dedication beyond what is currently available in public cloud offerings, IDC's expectation is that public clouds will mature and eventually incorporate many of the capabilities  -- particularly security and availability -- that make private clouds a more attractive option today.

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Managed Services Gaining Global Momentum

Savvy business leaders are increasingly turning to managed services to enable them to focus more attention on their core competencies, according to the latest market study by Pyramid Research. Managed services free up valuable IT and networking resources, decrease staffing needs and enable investment in activities that differentiate companies from their competition.

That said, the primary adoption driver is the current state of the global economy. As business leaders everywhere face increased financial pressure, they’re looking to managed services to offload their capital expense burden and improve operational efficiencies.

Analysts typically define managed network services as the management and monitoring of telecom infrastructure or applications by a third party -- either with equipment at the customer’s premise or hosted in a managed services provider (MSP) data center.

Responding to the Growing Global Demand
MSPs have responded to the increasing demand for new managed cloud services with a dramatic increase in investment to grow their managed services portfolios to include different types of out-tasked IT services for their customers. They are creating additional services that can be layered on top of the basic transport network offerings.

To learn more about the current market potential, Pyramid Research conducted an independent survey of more than 200 IT professionals from around the world to determine the types of managed services they’re using.

Primary conclusions from the market study include:

• Executives polled were willing to spend a large portion of their IT budgets -- between 10% and 20% -- on network-centric managed services, as the providers continue to prove the value and reliability of their offerings.
• The majority of enterprises -- almost 60% -- already use a managed service and have been doing so for between one and four years.
• Europe still has had the highest adoption of managed services -- driven in large part by the challenges of managing and maintaining business across multiple borders. However, the economic recession drove more North American companies to adopt managed services -- to lower costs and improve employee productivity.
• Additionally, emerging markets, such as those in Africa and Latin America, are preparing for managed services -- especially as broadband network access becomes more established.
• Multinational corporations and large enterprises have the most uptake in network-centric managed services, with SMEs now also looking for proven solutions that lower their costs.
• IT managers are applying a significant portion of their budget to managed services. Almost 25% of enterprises spend between $10,000 and $50,000 annually. Additionally, 26% of enterprises allocate between 10% and 20% of their IT budgets for managed services.
• The types of managed services that MSPs are providing are growing at a phenomenal rate. They manage everything from unified communications (UC) applications, to network security, to network connectivity and telepresence video collaboration services.
• Service trends over the next 18-24 months include managed machine-to-machine (M2M) services, such as automotive telematics, smart utility metering, fleet management, mobile health, point-of-sale transactions, mobile computing, wireless alarms, remote monitoring and wireless local loop (WLL).
• Growth is expected to continue throughout the U.S. and Europe -- especially in Eastern European countries, over the next 18 months. Latin America and Asia will provide continued expansion of these managed services.

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Widespread Private and Public Cloud Adoption

Cisco released the final installment of the Cisco Connected World Report, an international study about the behavioral trends of workers in accessing information anywhere, with any device, and the ability of information technology (IT) professionals to address their needs.

The latest results focus on data center, virtualization, and cloud computing trends, and evolving IT roles, in the context of increasingly mobile and distributed workforces.

The study found that 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’re also struggling to maintain security and data governance as employees demand more offsite access to networks and information.

Comparing Cloud Adoption Rates by Country
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).

This report adds to the initial survey results released in October, which revealed that 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.

The latest survey results examine how IT managers are evolving their data centers and taking advantage of new technologies, while working to accommodate trends in the workplace like social media, device proliferation, video and an increasingly mobile workforce.

Summary of 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.

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Managed Cloud Services for Enterprise Collaboration

Managed cloud services can accelerate your business by allowing you to transform ideas into marketable products and services with greater speed. Cloud can provide nearly limitless scalability, enabling your business to grow without time and resource intensive IT build-outs.

Cloud can transform the economics of your IT -- from capital-intensive, to pay-as-you-go. Service level agreements guarantee the capabilities you need, when you need them. Costs are tiered and metered to accurately reflect your requirements and usage.

All applications, including legacy, run more efficiently and sustainably with greater utilization of the underlying infrastructure.

Cloud can make new business models possible and unlock revenue potential. Companies can enter new markets, respond more quickly to changing customer needs, collaborate more effectively to drive innovation and business value.

Collaboration Use-Case Scenario

• Global organizations face real collaboration challenges. Employee expertise is distributed across headquarters and regional and branch locations around the world. Technology and travel limit responsiveness to customer needs. Cultural differences hamper internal teamwork and organizational agility.
• Enterprise-wide collaboration is particularly difficult to improve due to the communications silos created by existing infrastructure and disparate technology environments.
• Rich collaboration enables organizations to extend services reach and improve relationships with customers. Poor collaboration can result in customer dissatisfaction and competitive exposure.

Role for Cloud Technologies

• Cloud network-based collaboration strategies enable employees at all levels of the organization to connect and collaborate.
• Collaboration services built in the Cloud can also integrate with and enhance business processes and applications.

Application Considerations

• Proper collaboration architecture design relies on a thorough understanding of technology, people, and processes. The architecture must also be able to integrate with the desired business applications and processes.
• High-quality collaboration experiences require end-to-end solutions.

However, Cloud is neither an instantaneous nor simple transformation, but can be adopted in a controlled and pragmatic way. Cloud involves new technologies, new service and deployment models, and new IT skills sets and processes. Migration of legacy applications to Cloud can be a real challenge. That said, legacy platforms can co-exist with Cloud deployments and be migrated only as appropriate.

Moreover, Cloud does not always offer the best business solution. Some Cloud solutions limit the ability to customize functionality or cannot guarantee quality of service. Some workloads may have stringent compliance or technical requirements that demand other approaches.

Organizations will need to determine where Cloud applications are most appropriate, based on workload-specific requirements around cost, risk, and performance.

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Business Social Networking Upside-Downside

Social media tools are entering the workplace, either by thoughtful intent or purely by accident. To date, for those organizations that actually have a plan of action, most tend to focus more on "damage containment" policies for their employees.

Is a protection-centric strategy the prudent approach for concerned -- but otherwise uninformed -- business leaders, or is it shortsighted thinking that undervalues the upside opportunity?

Cisco released the results of a third-party global market study designed to assess how organizations use consumer social networking tools to collaborate externally.

The use of these tools, such as Facebook and Twitter, are connecting organizations with their external stakeholders. On the upside, the tools connect people and information, establish potential new routes to market, and enhance customer intimacy and brand awareness.

According to the third-party researcher, the study findings indicate that we're at the early stages of adoption and in the process of identifying key challenges -- such as the need for increased governance and IT involvement.

Market Study Highlights
Of the organizations interviewed, 75 percent identified social networks as the consumer-based social media tools they primarily use, while roughly 50 percent of the group also identified extensive use of microblogging.

Social networking tools are spreading into core business areas, including marketing, human relations, and customer service. Within marketing and communications, these tools have already become an integral part of early-adopter initiatives.

Small and medium-sized businesses are actively using social networking channels to generate sales leads, but this remains a growth opportunity for larger companies.

Only one in seven of the companies that participated in the research noted a formal process associated with adopting consumer-based social networking tools for business purposes.

Only one in five participants identified any policies in place concerning the use of consumer-based social networking in the enterprise. Within the respondent base, social networking governance typically involves more stakeholders than standard corporate initiatives.

Due to the unstructured nature of social networking, companies continue to struggle with policy creation and adoption, as copying an established governance process from other more structured areas often doesn't work for social networking.

Only one in 10 respondents noted direct IT involvement in externally facing social networking initiatives. Although IT typically isn't involved as a primary decision maker, respondents did recognize the need for these tools to scale and properly integrate with existing business processes to reap maximum benefits.

The new study is based on extensive interviews with 105 participants representing 97 organizations in 20 countries around the globe. Conducted between April and September 2009, the research was carried out by leading business schools in the United States and Europe.

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New Normal: Bold IT-Based Business Agility

European business leaders believe their companies are more vulnerable to IT-enabled market disruptions than companies in other parts of the world, according to a new market study by McKinsey & Company.

McKinsey found that 74 percent of European business leaders believed their company was 'very' or 'extremely' exposed to IT-based market disruption. Regardless, only 18 percent of European IT executives believed their companies were 'very effective' at introducing business technology faster and better than their competitors.

According to the McKinsey assessment, European companies need to grasp the opportunity to make bold, transformative moves to ensure their business continues to thrive within the "New Normal" environment of ICT-empowered borderless commerce.

A significant number of businesses have recognized the need to adapt, with 31 percent of European executives saying the development of new products and services in response to changing consumption patterns was a high priority.

'Good Enough' isn't a Winning Strategy
McKinsey believes that the attitude of European business leaders towards IT must shift. Organizations have achieved 'satisfactory' results by attaining some success in improving IT productivity, operational productivity, or innovation.

However, the performance expectation bar is now much higher and "IT must truly excel in all of these dimensions to support a winning company." McKinsey's guidance for European companies includes:

• Align IT and the business, upgrade business skills of IT leaders and close performance gaps.
• Improve governance models to facilitate joint decision making and strategic planning between IT and the business.
• Fundamentally restructure the IT function to dramatically improve productivity.
• Transform the company's operating model and cost structure with IT-enabled business processes.
• Enable transformative moves by promoting a mindset that fosters and rewards experimentation with new ideas.
• Identify opportunities for IT-enabled innovations and be prepared to respond to competitors' disruptive moves.
  

Outlook: Prepare for More of the Same
McKinsey says companies have begun to recognize that the current recession is not simply another turn of the business cycle but a restructuring of the economic order -- and that they need to look beyond relieving short-term cost pressures.

In summary, the current economic environment should be treated as the benchmark conditions for the foreseeable future. Where's the upside opportunity? Become that 'agent' of change.

McKinsey research has shown that downturns are times when industry leadership often changes. Forty-eight percent of global IT companies and 40 percent of U.S. industrial companies that were leaders before the 2000-01 recession did not retain their leadership positions afterward.

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How to Unlock the Power of Virtualization

Virtualization uses technology to remove the physical barriers associated with computer servers and applications -- enabling the consolidation or replacement of servers, storage, network and other physical devices.

As a result, your business can better use computing capacity and drive more value from IT resources as well as consolidate data centers and significantly lower energy consumption.

For companies who need guidance on a virtualization project, Verizon Business offers these five tips -- culled from the company's years of experience handling complex IT installations and expertise in implementing and managing virtual environments:

1. Make sure you're looking at the big picture: A business should first complete a thorough assessment of its current IT environment and computing resources, including a full review of all servers. Once the enterprise has a better understanding of its infrastructure, it is easier to determine which computing resources, such as servers and devices, are candidates for consolidation.
2. Enlist vendor support: After compiling a list of applications that can be virtualized, it is important to confirm there will be very few, if any, issues with vendor support. Some vendors, especially smaller ones, do not support their software on virtualized platforms.
3. Evaluate licensing costs: When assessing applications for migration, evaluate the licensing costs associated with them. While consolidating multiple servers and devices into a single virtual machine will lower hardware and facility costs, this does not necessarily apply to software licensing costs. Many vendors still charge based on total available power and the number of physical applications. If that's the case, consider working with vendors that embrace more flexible licensing models.
4. Avoid common bottlenecks: Carefully assess the memory and storage requirements for applications moving to the virtual environment. Memory and storage can severely limit how many virtual machines a host can support. A common scenario is an environment with consolidated storage and a high number of mobile BlackBerry users, requiring large memory and storage needs. Therefore, assessment, management and proper allocation of applications per virtual machine are key.
5. Security, security, security: Security should be a top priority; it should be built in from the ground up to ensure the new environment comes with the right safeguards. Enterprises also should pay close attention to relevant industry regulations. For instance, businesses that store, handle or process customer payment information must maintain compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a comprehensive set of requirements for enhancing payment account data security. In that case, PCI DSS compliance would be a key requirement for the new virtual environment.
   

"Virtualization holds huge promise for the enterprise," said Michael Marcellin, vice president of Verizon global managed solutions. "Its ability to increase efficiency and agility while managing costs is unparalleled. With that potential, however, comes complexity concerning deployment and implementation. Our hope is that enterprises will take this promising technology to heart and embrace our suggestions -- based on our more than 10 years experience managing complex IT infrastructures -- on how best to utilize it."

Verizon Business offers a wealth of IT and hosting solutions to help customers meet their most-pressing IT needs in today's dynamic business environment. As we've previously reported on the Business Technology Roundtable, enterprise and small-business executives are actively adopting the selective out-tasking of applications to these managed cloud services.

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Global Multi-tenant Service Provider Clouds

Multinational companies typically have more complex computing and networking technical support requirements, because their business technology applications can span over numerous locations with very diverse operations.

Business and IT leaders are currently exploring managed cloud service options, and they're comparing all new offerings from qualified service providers with international expertise.

BT, the UK-based provider of communications services, revealed that it will be launching a Virtual Data Centre (VDC) service in the coming months, supporting the needs large business and public sector organizations.

VDC provides a dynamic and virtualized infrastructure platform that enables their customers to consume IT and networking Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) -- it essentially forms the base for future cloud services.

BT says that VDC delivers the benefits of enterprise-class cloud computing to customers at a significant saving -- when compared with a standard hosted infrastructure deployment.

Appeal of Infrastructure as a Service
"Any Infrastructure as a Service offering that can provide a platform where organizations can scale their computing, network, and storage requirements in real-time, according to their needs, will have obvious appeal." said Roy Illsley, Senior Research Analyst at research company Butler Group.

Customers will be able to purchase virtualized components and access them over a pre-provisioned infrastructure. Virtual server, storage, security and networking capabilities will be available, automated and orchestrated through an online portal.

"BT is one of the very first movers in Europe with its Infrastructure as a Service offer and the only global provider that will be deploying this service across a vast network of data centers both in the UK and Europe," said Dustin Kehoe, Principal Analyst, Current Analysis.

"Other differentiators for BT include a strong central platform allowing customers to provision services on the fly and a solid professional services organization to support customers with higher end requirements."

Apparently, BT VDC is just one of a number of new offerings that will be announced by BT Global Services this year, focused on helping business customers achieve a competitive edge.

Demand for Cloud Internetworking
There's an emerging term used to describe hybrid scenarios -- when enterprise applications can seamlessly move between their internal and external clouds, leveraging the elasticity and multi-tenancy that a cloud infrastructure offers.

We'll be hearing more about the notion of a Virtual Private Inter-Cloud.

What's the primary benefit for your business? Cost reduction -- with a "pay as you grow" IT service. You eliminate capital investment and significantly reduce operational expenditure, while still maintaining secure control of your data.

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IT Power Users Will Lead the Way

Have you ever wondered if your company's utilization of Business Technology is in line with the creative market leaders? The Harvard Business Review recently published an interesting commentary by Susan Cramm entitled "How to Support Your IT Innovators."

Ms. Cramm believes that to realize the full potential from business technology, all enterprises need IT-smart business leaders -- up, down, and across the organization.

According to the results of her ongoing survey, however, business leaders apparently don't feel very smart about their IT adoption and application practices.

• Only 11% personally use and fully leverage the capabilities of the technology currently in place.
• 50% agree with the statement that "business leaders don't understand how to use their systems and technologies."
• And, only 25% of business leaders consider themselves "IT-smart."
  

Liberate the Business Technology Innovators
One person she interviewed said "business groups that have somebody on their team who is an IT expert do much better -- in terms of leveraging technology to meet their needs -- than those who do not." While that may not be profound, it's a noteworthy comment.

Tech-savvy business users perform a valuable function for their less-informed peer group. They are able to determine what is truly possible, with current technology. Why? It's because power-users sometimes have better productivity enhancing tools in their home-based office than they do at their place of work.

How can this be possible? Well, IT managers focused on total control of all physical infrastructure are consumed by operational tasks and remedial user support activity. They have little or no time available to research, test and adopt the best-fit productivity tools for their business user needs.

Don’t Assume, Follow the Informed User
Moreover, there's often a major disconnect between what business users say they need, and what their IT team assumes they would apply. Most organizations use only 64 percent of their enterprise systems core functions, according to a recent Accenture survey.

"About half said they don't need all the capabilities, while a fifth explained that they didn't make use of all the functionality due to lack of time to learn how to apply them," said Accenture.

In summary, Ms. Cramm says that you should identify your lead users, give them more of what they really need, free up your IT team's time to study what they are doing (and why), and then decide how to standardize and scale the most promising innovations to benefit the whole enterprise.

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Business Video Impact is Far Reaching

Many of the visitors to the AT&T booth at the VoiceCon 2009 are having their first experience of a TelePresence solution in action. Tina Vestal, customer care center manager at CHEP, perhaps sums it up best with her assessment -- "it's amazing!"

Earlier this week, BAE Systems Land and Armaments, part of the third largest defense company in the world, agreed to enhance their global employee collaboration and productivity with the AT&T Telepresence Solution.

BAE Systems will use Telepresence to provide an in-person meeting experience with executive leadership and engineering teams across the U.S., and the United Kingdom. This capability will also be expanded to Sweden, South Africa and other regions in the future.

Their TelePresence applications are intended to be far reaching, across numerous parts of their organization. Live video-based meetings will help them accelerate decision-making processes and problem-solving for high-priority projects.

More Productive Meetings, Less Unproductive Travel
With the anticipated increase in productivity through engineering team collaboration, and frequent management team interactions, the BAE Systems participants will also realize direct operational cost reduction.

AT&T's fully managed service includes in-room equipment, installation, full monitoring and management of the application, network provisioning, remote help desk service and on-site equipment maintenance and repair.

"We anticipate a reduction in travel time, costs, and realize other benefits -- including improved employee safety and quality of life through this environmentally-friendly tool," said Bharat Amin, VP & CIO at BAE Systems Land & Armaments.

BAE Systems is a global company engaged in the development, delivery and support of advanced defense, security and aerospace systems in the air, on land and at sea. They employ 105,000 people, and have customers in over 100 countries worldwide.

Updates:
Also view the Day Two video commentary from demo visitors.

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Can You Reach Your IT Manager On Thanksgiving?

As Thanksgiving approaches on November 27, many U.S. companies are heading into an extended four-day holiday weekend.

If you're an executive or CIO ask yourself the following question: If your web servers, databases or network infrastructure failed over the holiday weekend who would you call for help?

Despite the proliferation of smart phones and ubiquitous network services, many IT staff members are impossible to reach over holiday weekends.

And commuting into the office for an IT or network emergency is the last thing most employees have in mind when they sit down for Thanksgiving turkey.

Secure, Safe and Sound
On the other hand, I will rest easy this holiday weekend because our company depends on multiple managed service providers (MSPs) -- a group of companies that remotely monitor, manage and troubleshoot our Web servers, databases and network systems.

In most scenarios, our MSPs mitigate an IT or network issue before it becomes a major problem. We pay a flat monthly fee to our Web host and MSPs for those proactive services.

As a result, my business partner and I will relax with our respective families this holiday weekend -- even as thousands of readers across the world continue to visit our corporate and media Web sites.

Through our MSP relationships we've purchased peace of mind -- which is actually priceless.

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