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Major trends and issues for IT management in 2012
December 7, 2011
Given the rapid pace of technological change, what can CIOs and IT Managers expect from 2012? What issues will they carry over from 2011, and how will IT solve these issues? Are there new challenges to be wary of?
These questions and more were recently asked of Michael Chanter, General Manager, Professional Services, Frontline. His candid responses shed light on the imminent future of IT for enterprise and SME businesses in Australia.
Legacy issues from 2011
Firstly, where are CIOs and IT Managers at now? What are the legacy challenges that they will carry into 2012?
According to Michael, there are two key issues. The first is the lingering expectation that CIOs should squeeze the most life out of IT assets before upgrading.
“We have a lot of customers who are revisiting their data centres and questioning this philosophy of pushing existing assets to their limit. As the cost of power skyrockets and new, greener technologies are much more economical to run, the financial value of this dated practice is really being challenged,” said Michael.
The second issue is around applications. “IT exists to support business applications. From a CIO’s perspective, their role is to keep line-of-business applications alive while the underlying infrastructure evolves – for example, to a cloud or virtualised environment,” he said.
The ongoing challenge is to ensure that these business-critical applications are both supported and upgraded in a timely and economic fashion.
Looking to 2012
On top of these ongoing matters, what are the major issues facing CIOs as 2012 approaches?
“There are four key issues that will come to the fore in 2012: the consumerisation of IT, the changing IT workforce, green IT, and the cloud,” said Michael.
1. Consumerisation of IT
Consumer technology is moving faster than corporate technology. Increasingly, employees – right up to C-level executives – are bringing their own devices into the workplace, and expect to be able to use them. This “BYO device” phenomenon will drive more IT change in the next 10 years than any other trend.
Then there is the penetration of services like Amazon, Facebook and other social environments, which also have a significant impact on the corporate IT environment.
The rapid advance of cloud-based consumer applications is challenging the enterprise’s mandated standard operating environment (SOE), and CIOs and IT managers must consider how best to manage their impact on critical IT issues like security.
2. Changing IT workforce
Closely related to the consumerisation of IT is the encroachment of Generation Y into the workforce. This presents a cultural shift, as these very IT-savvy workers expect that things will happen quickly.
“Tell a Gen Y worker that they have to use the Intranet, not Drop Box – or internal email instead of G-mail – and they won’t be impressed. These workers are used to pulling disparate pieces of technology together to use in a mobile fashion, from anywhere, and expect the same of their workplace,” said Michael.
For CIOs, who are used to keeping everything in the firewall and being the arbiter of all things technology-related, this presents a whole new set of challenges to overcome – and a significant shift in mindset.
3. Greening IT
Power consumption in the data centre is becoming a real issue for CIOs, and the design of infrastructure is increasingly shaped by this concern.
“When you look at the density of environments in the data centre, in our experience we have massive power cores – up to 35 kW for a rack of infrastructure that has to be powered 24/7. That’s roughly 6 or 7 times the amount of power we were seeing 3 or 4 years ago,” said Michael.
4. The cloud
The perception of the cloud is changing rapidly. Just 18 months ago, security was cited as the primary concern by CIOs – now, security is not nearly so much of an issue, and cloud has become a top business priority.
As the cloud becomes more ubiquitous, CIOs have to consider strategies for taking their existing environment and virtualising it, as well as moving applications and data into a public or hybrid cloud. They also need to formulate a holistic plan for this move – most enterprises are on the path to cloud computing via virtualisation, but lack the end strategy to complete the journey.
“It’s certainly worth investing in, as cloud computing presents a great opportunity for businesses to access new services and gain business advantage,” Michael said.
Budgets: doing more with the same
Michael predicts that IT budgets will remain the same in 2012. “As always, CIOs will be asked to do more with less. So they need to be agile, economic and responsive.”
With most serious IT environments always going through an upgrade, it is important to plan beyond 2012 and ask whether the systems and infrastructure being implemented will increase the agility of your environment.
This is particularly true for enterprise environments, which typically have significant capital investment in their IT infrastructure, and are locked in to line-of-business applications. Faced with these constraints, CIOs must think of ways to be more like SMEs – who have more agility than ever before thanks to cloud services and other technologies.
Gazing into the crystal ball
“There’s a lot to contemplate as the IT landscape changes. More than anything, I think convergence is going to have an impact on business. The catalysts for convergence and ongoing innovation – such as NBN Co, mobile penetration and technological advances in mobile broadband – are here and happening now. It’s not something that you can ignore,” said Michael.
“With this convergence and the change it will bring, it is important to have a plan in place and the flexibility to deal with unexpected issues – but also to take advantage of opportunities as they come along.”
Learn more
Listen to key take-outs from Michael Chanter’s interview
Request a call
The NTT Communications acquisition: what it means for our customers
Frontline’s position as a leading IT service provider in Australia has been strengthened by the recent 70% acquisition of our company by global IT&T giant, NTT Communications.
“From the outside, nothing changes. Our customers still have access to the same team of dedicated, customer-focused IT experts,” said Steve Murphy, Managing Director, Frontline.
“But behind the scenes, the depth and breadth of our service and scope has grown remarkably. Our core areas of service – infrastructure optimisation, storage management, managed services and professional services – are bolstered by NTT Communications’ networking and communications resources and knowledge.”
While still relatively unknown in Australia, NTT Communications is a respected global leader in telecommunications and data centres. With a vast network of physical cable around the world and 150 data centres in major cities across the globe, its reach is remarkable.
“For any Frontline customer wanting to take business offshore – such as major banks, telcos and transport companies – this reach gives them the confidence that we can deliver the same exceptional level of service and support wherever they want to go,” said Murphy.
Lynas Corporation, an ASX-listed Rare Earth company, is already reaping the benefits of the Frontline-NTT Communications partnership. Lynas uses Harbour MSP data centres in Australia and NTT Communications data centres offshore, to host the corporate system for global access.
“From our perspective, there are many benefits stemming from the global reach that NTT Communications brings to Frontline. In addition to the cohesion that comes with having both companies aligned to our goals, we enjoy greater purchasing power and, more importantly, seamless failover thanks to the size and scope of their infrastructure,” said Gillian Kidson, CIO, Lynas Corporation.
New depth in partnership
NTT Communications has an “extended family” of IT specialists that Frontline can now tap into, strengthening our vendor network even further.
These global firms – such as information security company Integralis, and technology services and outsourcing company Emerio – have deep specialist expertise that we will draw upon in delivering best-of-breed solutions to our customers.
A promising future with NTT Communications
Having just returned from an NTT Communications CEO’s meeting in Japan, Murphy is excited about its plans for its expansion in Australia.
The company plans to purchase more data centre assets here, to strengthen its local presence. “This is a great move for Frontline customers – as the acquisition of more data centre space will extend what we already offer at Harbour MSP and give our customers more room to move,” Murphy said.
It also has a strong global vision for cloud services, which Frontline will play a key role in building in Australia. Frontline customers can expect to see the first solutions in this space being rolled out early in the new year.
Finally, demonstrating NTT Communications’ commitment to the relationship with Frontline, a graduate exchange program is planned with our local offices – whereby young graduates from the NTT Communications head office in Japan will come to Frontline to work, and we will send our graduates to Japan.
“NTT Communications’ future with Frontline promises great things, that translates to even better services and solutions being offered to Frontline’s customers. We look forward to seeing the many ways in which our company grows thanks to this exciting acquisition,” said Murphy.
Learn more
Visit NTT Com website
Read the news article announcing the acquisition
Award-winning strength in partner relationships
In 2011, Frontline has worked extremely hard to cultivate strong and lasting partner relationships – in order to deliver the most comprehensive, best-of-breed solutions to our customers.
This work has been rewarded, with five key partner awards being presented to Frontline in 2011:
- Microsoft – Virtualisation Partner of the Year 2011
- Hitachi Data Systems -Partner of the Year 2011
- Red Hat – Strategic Partner of the Year 2011
- HP – ESSN Largest Revenue Achievement
- HP Financial Services – Highest Volume Award
Frontline was also a Finalist in Microsoft’s Desktop Partner of the Year award.
“These award are testimony to our commitment to forming very strong relationships with a select range of hardware vendors, system integrators and independent software vendors,” said Helen Bouropoulos, Frontline’s Head of Marketing.
“More importantly, it means that Frontline customers gain access to the very best technology on the market – delivered by our IT experts.”
Unsurpassed depth delivers best solutions
Frontline is one of few Australian IT companies that has such deep relationships with so many leading vendors. Our commitment to developing and maintaining these relationships pays enormous dividends to our customers – who only want the best technology and solutions.
“We take an agnostic and objective approach, building customer solutions by drawing upon multiple partners’ technologies. It’s our job to compare vendor offerings on behalf of our customers – we do the leg work and use our deep IT expertise to bring the whole solution together,” said Chris Ford, National Sales Manager.
Certainly, having strong partner relationships would mean little if Frontline were not able to back it up with its own technical expertise. Frontline’s expert knowledge of storage, servers, virtualisation, networking and security, cloud aggregation and more delivers the “value add” that so many of our customers have come to rely upon.
Into 2012 and beyond, Frontline is committed to strengthening existing partner relationships and ensuring that any emerging technology vendors that our customers may benefit from will join the list of partners we work closely with.
Congratulations to our vForum winner
December 22, 2011
Frontline and Hitachi Data Systems would like to thank all those who entered the recent vForum competition.
Congratulations to Sam Ghali of ING Direct, who had the best response to the question: “In 50 words or less, describe how storage virtualisation could assist your organisation?”.
Sam’s response was:
By simplifying the process of allocating storage across multiple storage platforms, hence reducing internal skill-set required and staff training costs.
Sam will receive a $500 Apple gift card.
Events
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- 7 December 2011
Major trends and issues for IT management in 2012 - 7 December 2011
The NTT Communications acquisition: what it means for our customers - 7 December 2011
Award-winning strength in partner relationships - 22 December 2011
Congratulations to our vForum winner
- 7 December 2011
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