12 Reasons IT Infrastructure Still Matters in the Cloud Age

Cloud infrastructure

Investments in IT infrastructure may finally be on the rise. Of the 67% that will increase spending, 37% report they will increase spending 5% to 10%.

Many organizations now have a better handle on the true cost of enterprise computing: 33% want to reduce operational costs while 29% cited faster application development.

IT infrastructure investments clearly go beyond being just another commodity. While 41% cited the ability to optimize profit and revenue, 30% said infrastructure was a key business strategy enabler.

IT infrastructure fundamentals remain in place. Security, servers and storage topped the list—each with a third of the respondents citing it as a top investment area.

More than half don’t know where those workloads will run in three to five years. Roughly 80% of all workloads still run on-premise versus 20% in the cloud.

The vast majority of IT organizations still have a foggy notion of cloud computing. Only 31% report they are prepared or fully prepared to support cloud computing.

IT organizations are only slightly more prepared for mobile than cloud computing. Almost 40% said they are either prepared or fully prepared.

Big data requires major investments in IT infrastructure. Only 38% reported that they are prepared.

Social media drives a need for IT infrastructure that can dynamically scale. Only 38% say they are prepared or fully prepared.

Of the 43% who cited security as a major concern, insider threats are the most lethal. Being compromised by a rogue administrator or privileged insider (48%) is the top concern, followed by social media, at 41%.

Data management on a global scale has become a major problem. Nearly half (46%) consider the ability to efficiently and securely move data from one region to another a major impediment.

Only 30% said they are collaborating effectively with the business. That would suggest another 70% see room for improvement.