This document discusses the priorities, needs, and views of IT organizations regarding their networks and infrastructure. It contains the results of surveys that find: - Supporting business initiatives like mobility, data analytics, and cloud computing are top priorities for networks. Respondents want networks that are secure, high-performing, cost-effective and easy to manage. - Increasing data storage needs are driven by business growth, more data per activity, and increased regulatory requirements. - Cloud resources, data center consolidation, big data infrastructure, and video streaming will significantly impact networks over the next year as organizations pursue digital transformation. - Characteristics like control, flexibility, reliability and cost management are important for networks to

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5. Business
intelligence
(data about
customers)
Business
resources
(employeesand
infrastructure)
Business
agility
(organization speed
and flexibility)
Power of one
(customized
productsand
services)

6. 
3%
5%
11%
12%
12%
17%
25%
28%
30%
31%
31%
31%
35%
40%
44%
45%
62%
Acquire and retain talent
Acquire other companies/divest parts of
existing business operations/units
Improve corporate environmental sustainability
and social responsibility
Expand into new geographic markets
Move from costs from capital to operating
expense categories
Re-engineer core business processes
Streamline business operations and
consolidate business units
Acquire and retain customers
Grow overall company revenue
Drive new market offerings or business practices
Improve our ability to innovate as an organization
Improve quality of products and/or processes
Improve your customer relationships
Comply with government regulations
and requirements
Lower the firm's overall operating costs
Improve business flexibility and resilience
Improve workforce productivity
“From a business standpoint, what do you believe your IT infrastructure offers the business?”

7. 


8. 62%
67%
67%
67%
71%
72%
Implement or expand use of collaboration capabilities
Significantly upgrade disaster recovery and business
continuity capabilities
Consolidate IT infrastructure via data center/server
consolidation or virtualization
Increase use of business intelligence and decision-support
tools and services
Significantly upgrade our security environment
Expand use of mobile/tablet apps for employees,
customers, business partners
“Which of the following initiatives are likely to be your IT organization’s top technology priorities over the
next 12 months?”
(4 or 5 on a scale of 1 [not at all important] to 5 [very important])
42%
45%
52%
53%
57%
The business has required us to increase our replication
and disaster recovery capabilities
Regulatory compliance and auditing requirements require us
to keep more data than before
Business is growing, so there's more data generated by
existing systems
We are capturing more data per business activity than
before to help the business make better decisions
The business is leveraging more IT services and the data
has increased
“What key business needs are responsible for increasing your data storage needs?”

9. 21%
27%
31%
39%
45%
48%
58%
59%
59%
61%
61%
64%
67%
Increased total cost of ownership
Standards-based and open to integration of best breed
Enable hybrid infrastructure environments (private internal cloud
and public cloud like Amazon) to leverage the best cost models
More open and adaptable (scale up and down as
needed, automatically)
Ability to adopt cutting-edge technologies faster
Faster time of deployment of new services
and applications
Better control over the infrastructure
Zero downtime or more reliable
More efficient and/or better utilization of infrastructure
(nothing sits idle)
Better control over infrastructure costs
More responsive to the business
More flexible yet predictable
Easy to manage
“Please select all the characteristics of your ideal infrastructure.”

10. 

22%
33%
35%
36%
37%
39%
45%
51%
53%
55%
59%
62%
65%
Consolidated or rationalized enterprise
application portfolio
Pursued an infrastructure-as-a-service strategy
Pursued a software-as-a-service strategy
Converged storage onto the network
Increased use of business intelligence and
decision-support tools and services
Supported Web 2.0 technologies
Refreshed network
Significantly upgraded our security environment
Implemented or expanded use of collaboration
capabilities
Implemented desktop virtualization
Expanded use of mobile/tablet apps for employees,
customers, business partners
Upgraded network
Consolidated IT infrastructure via data center/
server consolidation or virtualization
“In regard to supporting your business initiatives, which of the following IT initiatives did your organization
undertake over the past few years?”
Technologies to
support a mobile,
empowered, and
dispersed workforce.

11. “In regard to the value that IT infrastructure brings to the business, rate the network’s impact on business values.”
(4 or 5 on a scale of 1 [no impact] to 5 [significant impact])
93%
89%
87%
84%
84%
83%
83%
81%
Improve workforce productivity
Improve quality of products and/or processes
Lower the firm’s overall operating costs
Improve business flexibility and resilience — faster time to
market, quicker response to changing business conditions
Streamline business operations and consolidate business
units
Re-engineer core business processes
Improve our ability to innovate as an organization
Improve our customer relationships

12. “For the initiatives you undertook or the business demands, how much of an impact did they have on
your firm’s network?”
(5 on a scale of 1 [no impact] to 5 [significant impact])
N = 71
N = 66
N = 58
N = 58
N = 34
N = 71
N = 52
N = 50
N = 67
58%
50%
48%
47%
46%
45%
35%
29%
20%
Increased the use of cloud resources such as software, infrastructure, or
business process as-a-service offerings
Increased business intelligence with big data (large amounts and complex
data)
Increased efficiency of the infrastructure through virtualization of servers,
storage, appliances, and other hardware
Improved collaboration with the introduction of live IP-based video
streaming for conferences and training, other collaboration tools
Eliminated redundancy by consolidating data centers and therefore
applications, data, and supporting hardware
Increased efficiency by continuing the consolidation of storage, servers,
and applications from branch offices
Converged non-IT equipment on to the network for the business
Let company personnel leverage third-party applications outside the
business such as backups, email, and other applications for work
Let end users bring their own devices to work such as smartphones and
tablets

13. “Cloud computing is comprised of key capabilities, outlined below. Forrester defines cloud computing as: a
standardized IT capability (services, software, or infrastructure) delivered in a pay-per-use, self-service way.
Thinking about these capabilities with big data and enabling mobile users, which of the following do you
consider to be important network capabilities?”
(4 or 5 on a scale of 1 [not at all important] to 5 [very important])
56%
64%
65%
67%
68%
68%
71%
72%
75%
79%
81%
87%
Open and standards-based
Programmable network that can automate mundane, manually
driven, and repeatable tasks
Network offers converged services; it supports video, voice,
data, storage, and other business tools
Low acquisition (hardware) costs
Powerful hardware
Simplified (the complexity is hidden or driven out to increase
its efficiency)
Scalable (the network can expand and contract as
the business needs with a similar cost structure)
The network solution can be deployed quickly, updates can be
done quickly, and new services can be implemented quickly
Low maintenance costs
Large bandwidth
Resilient (the network has high availability and is resistant
to disruption)
Secure network to support the employee, customer,
and business information

14. 


15. N = 40
N = 73
N = 56
N = 43
N = 31
“For the initiatives your organization will execute next year, how much of an impact will they have on
your firm's network?”
(5 on a scale of 1 [no impact] to 5 [significant impact])
51%
50%
48%
45%
40%
Leverage cloud resources such as software,
infrastructure, or business process as-a-service
offerings
Consolidate data centers and therefore
applications, data, and supporting hardware
Deploy a big data infrastructure
Roll out live IP-based video streaming for
conferences whether it is desktop or conference
rooms
Deploy virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) or
virtual apps

16. “How much of an impact will the following capabilities have on your firm’s network ability to
support the ideal infrastructure?”
(4 or 5 on a scale of 1 [no impact] to 5 [significant impact])
95%
93%
91%
89%
89%
84%
81%
81%
81%
81%
78%
Better control over the infrastructure
Better control over infrastructure costs
Easy to manage
Zero downtime or more reliable
More responsive to the business
More efficient and/or better utilization of infrastructure
(nothing sits idle)
More open and adaptable (scale up and down as
needed, automatically)
More flexible yet predictable
Faster time of deployment of new services
and applications
Ability to adopt cutting-edge technologies faster
Enable hybrid infrastructure environments (private internal cloud
and public cloud like Amazon) to leverage the best cost models

17. 

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18. “How many times in the past year have you been unable to provision new services/support the business
demands of IT because your network was not up to the task?”
28%
31%
13%
8%
6%
14%
1 time
2 times
3 times
4 times
5 or more times
Don't know

19. “Which of the following words and phrases reflect the way you think about the network?”
9%
9%
20%
29%
35%
38%
40%
74%
Insecure
Unreliable
Inefficient
Manual
Rigid (difficult to change)
Closed
Difficult to manage
Complex