3 pillars to challenge CIOs: Mobility, social and cloud

 

Research by the International Data Corporation (IDC) and cloud services provider NEXTDC has outlined the challenges that CIOs face in pursuit of effective IT infrastructure.

Hybrid cloud deployments – those that hold data both locally and off-site – are becoming more viable due to the potent mixture of cost savings and increased scalability they offer.

Twinned with progressive cloud solutions, there are three cornerstones that look set to shape the strategy of the majority of companies going forward.

Mobility, social, cloud and big data

“Many CIOs and IT Managers are experiencing new challenges in their ICT environments as a result of the 3rd Platform pillars of mobility, social, cloud and Big Data,” explained IDC Australia and New Zealand Infrastructure Research Manager Glen Duncan.

Hybrid cloud solutions can tend to those three pillars through flexibility. Holding data on multiple servers at varied locations can make it easier for organizations to find faster solutions in the short-term. This is achieved as they allow information to be switched seamlessly between the public facing and private aspects of the business’s IT offerings.

As enterprise IT becomes a more streamlined blend of technical, commercial and operational resources, hybrid infrastructure makes the strategic management of the entire business’s systems more fluid.

IT spending growth

IDC has predicted that companies in all sectors that don’t look to implement more adaptable solutions will struggle to deal with growth and disruption across 2015.

Worldwide IT spending will hit US$3.8 billion this year, with the third platform – mobile, cloud, big data – set to “account for one third of global ICT spending and 100 per cent of spending growth,” according to Senior Vice President and Chief Analyst at IDC Frank Gens.

In Australia, public IT cloud services spending will hit US$1.7 billion by 2018. That accounts for a compound annual growth rate of over 17 per cent, about eight times the expansion rate of the rest of the country’s IT sector combined.