Business Technology Roundtable

Guided by senior executive goals for digital transformation, more organizations are increasing their use of cloud computing technologies. The typical multi-cloud mix includes a blend of public cloud, private cloud and traditional IT services. Finding the best-fit service mix starts with the business requirements. The latest Global Cloud Index (GCI) 2016-2021 from Cisco focuses on the worldwide market outlook for enterprise data center virtualization and cloud computing services. Today's digital business is enabled by a Hybrid IT infrastructure that supports the deployment of cloud-based solutions. Driven by the surging enthusiasm for digital reinvention projects, data center traffic is growing fast. The market study authors forecast global cloud data center traffic will reach 19.5 zettabytes (ZB) per year by 2021 -- that's up from 6.0 ZB per year in 2016. Globally, cloud data center traffic will represent 95 percent of total data center traffic by 2021, compared to 88 per...

The world of business is changing. Disruptive shifts in power are forcing everyone to question the established status quo. In particular, savvy chief executives are tasking IT organizations to help create compelling customer experiences, support new business models and adopt agile operational processes. That's why the vast majority of IT and business leaders are joining forces on the organizations’ most pressing commercial needs and wants. They seek an open and flexible business technology foundation that's an enabler, rather than an inhibitor, to meaningful and substantive workflow progress. Forward-thinking executives believe cloud services can empower them to achieve their strategic business outcomes. Moreover, they want their whole leadership team to collaborate across the business, developing a comprehensive IT strategy that utilizes existing infrastructure investments and the elasticity of cloud services. Innovation: Opportunities vs Challenges Meanwhile, CIOs are...

Earlier in the year, Gartner forecast that by year-end 2016, more than 50 percent of global companies will have stored customer-sensitive data in a public cloud platform. These services can scale very quickly, which has made them very popular for applications that have a requirement for flexibility. Cloud storage offers organizations significant cost and agility benefits, but can pose some security, privacy, accessibility and performance challenges. Therefore, a big part of selecting a best-fit cloud storage provider is investing the time to perform the research to fully understand its capabilities. Furthermore, most industry analyst prior market studies have uncovered that Line of Business leaders are most likely to procure public cloud service offerings for their organizations. However, survey participants at two recent business technology events on the East Coast were divided about who in their organization is primarily driving their cloud computing strategy. So, given these...

As the role of cloud computing is growing around the globe, many CIOs and other senior IT decision makers are facing challenges with their existing network infrastructure -- to support the migration of their business applications to the cloud. A new international study by Cisco Systems revealed the ongoing challenges associated with public or private cloud deployments. These latest research findings provide insight into the current state of cloud service adoption and the chasm between IT expectations and network realities. The survey also examines the experiences of IT professionals regarding the level of difficulty and time required to update their networks and migrate their applications to the cloud. The 2012 Cisco Global Cloud Networking Survey addresses the applications that are most critical for businesses to move to a cloud services delivery model, as well as the network challenges and potential disruptions and road blocks they are facing during this process. The report also...

Government agencies are reportedly one of the primary benefactors of managed cloud services. According to the results from a recent market study by IDC, IT decision-makers across the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) found that 59 percent of public sector respondents are confident in the ability of their internal IT departments to deploy private cloud environments. However, IDC Government Insights cautions that high levels of private cloud adoption may not bode well for a collaborative and citizen-engaging government and preemptive measures should be taken for collaboration to take place across organizational boundaries. More insights can be found in the IDC report entitled, "Cloud Computing for Government: a View from Asia-Pacific." Frank Levering, Research Manager for IDC said, "An efficient and productive internal IT department is definitely a good to have in any organization, private or public. However, a department that is highly confident in running its o...

While most commentary about managed cloud services tend to focus on the advances in commercial enterprise applications, government agencies are also making noteworthy progress. In particular, the advent of regional community cloud hubs is a phenomenon that's worthy of further exploration. According to their latest market study and related report, IDC Government Insights believes regional cloud hubs will significantly change the way state and local governments procure online computing services. These regional cloud hubs, defined as one government agency offering computing and storage services to other government agencies, have proven successful in the State of Michigan and State of Utah. In addition, the IDC's research provides a framework for building similar regional cloud solutions. According to Shawn McCarthy, research analyst, IDC Government Insights, "We believe that cloud hubs will see rapid growth, since the first multi-agency efforts have already shown a pos...

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 f...

In a global economy, professional services firms must differentiate themselves from their competition in increasingly creative ways. Rockwell Technology Group, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based software development firm, serves customers across the U.S. Midwest and Canada, including manufacturers, insurance companies, and management services. Because its customers are widespread, it needed to come up with a way to quickly and securely deliver software updates and patches for systems it had developed. As a way to save both time and money, it uses WebEx Workspace , a hosted extranet service, to post the results of its work for download by customers. The alternative would be to burn the software onto a CD or DVD and either have it delivered by hand or shipped overnight. But by using WebEx Workspace, Rockwell garners several advantages. Saving Time, Increasing Security One advantage is that the software updates, which may be necessary to make a business process more efficient , are immediately a...