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What are the most pressing issues facing enterprise IT organizations? Cost management and virtualization, according to a recent survey of more than 160 IBM customers.
The complete results of the survey, conducted by SHARE, will be released at SHARE’s biannual conference, SHARE in Boston, Aug. 1-5. SHARE is an independent, volunteer-run association providing IBM customers with user-focused education, professional networking and a forum to influence the information technology industry. SHARE currently counts more than 2,100 organizations among its active member ranks.
SHARE conducted the survey of more than 160 of IBM’s top customers to review the current state of enterprise IT in terms of where companies are putting the most resources and focus, the organization said in a press release about the survey. Results of the study provide industry analysis to help SHARE better shape its programs and events for the greater member-and enterprise IT-community. The information also provides valuable insights to IBM and ISVs (independent software vendors) about issues that concern their customers the most. The survey was conducted during June and July 2010.
“Companies were asked to rank their top five concerns, and cost management, especially when it comes to cost reduction and avoidance, continues to be top of mind for these companies,” said Al Williams, president of SHARE, in a statement. “The survey reinforces why one of the themes for SHARE in Boston-How to Empower Your Bottom Line-is so important. It’s not enough to just cut costs-the successful enterprise IT professional knows there is a need to demonstrate IT’s value and how it can provide a competitive advantage every day.”
Virtualization ranked as the second biggest concern, with server virtualization the primary focus, followed by storage virtualization and then network virtualization. Cloud computing, another theme for SHARE in Boston, ranked seventh, with infrastructure as a service (IAAS) identified as the most prominent focus in the cloud, followed by software as a service (SAAS) and platform as a service (PAAS).
Following cost management, the SHARE survey ranked the rest of the top issues in the following order:
o Virtualization
o Improving IT’s value and deriving competitive advantage from IT
o Enterprise security
o The aging and demographics of current IT staffs
o Business continuity planning
o Cloud computing
o Regulatory compliance
o Reinvigorating/repurposing the mainframe
o Data center energy management
There will be more than 600 technical sessions at SHARE in Boston at the Hynes Convention Center Aug. 1-5, focusing on themes such as enterprise virtualization, cloud computing and how to empower your bottom line.
In addition, Karl Freund, IBM’s vice president of System z Marketing and Strategy, will discuss IBM’s new zEnterprise System in his System z keynote presentation. Freund’s keynote address will begin at 9:30 a.m. on Aug. 2.
“SHARE, the community of enterprise IT professionals who are experts in the mainframe and more, is delighted that IBM chose SHARE in Boston to showcase for the first time the new generation of Smarter Systems launching under the IBM zEnterprise System brand,” SHARE’s Williams said in a statement. “We expect that this offering will bring the management capabilities we have enjoyed from our IBM mainframe systems for decades to more of the diverse services we offer in our enterprise data centers.”
The IBM zEnterprise System will provide IBM’s clients with an innovative solution to today’s complex issues in the data center. IBM says it is the industry’s first integrated System of Systems, enabling clients to better manage and govern a mixed workload environment as an extension to their System z mainframe.
At its core is the next System z, which is based on the industry’s fastest microprocessor and has unprecedented scalability and efficiency. Then this system is augmented with IBM’s new Unified Resource Manager and a Bladecenter Extension that allows x86 and Power7 blades to host workloads as an integral part of the System z.
“SHARE is the voice of more than 20,000 enterprise IT professionals representing more than 2,000 of IBM’s top enterprise computing customers,” Williams added in a statement. “Our members will benefit not only from the IBM perspective of what this means for their businesses, but also from the feedback they get from networking at SHARE in Boston with their peers at top corporations, universities and colleges, and government organizations from around the world.”