SAYS STUDY
CIOs want business-oriented data centers
By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 15:47:00 12/05/2008
Filed Under: Research, Computing & Information Technology, Technology (general)
MAKATI CITY, Philippines -- Companies are more concerned about making data centers "business-oriented" than green, according to a survey commissioned by IBM.
Research firm IDC surveyed chief information officers (CIOs) from 54 IBM customers across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.
Nearly 35 percent of the respondents said aligning data centers with company goals is the biggest priority.
On the other hand, slightly more than 10 percent mentioned the need to build a "green" or environment-friendly information technology framework.
"For the CIOs, the mood is you don't buy anything unless it supports a goal for example, expanding the business abroad," said Avneesh Saxena, IDC Asia Pacific group vice president for storage and software, in a press briefing Friday.
Companies are not spending as much on hardware but Saxena noted IT costs continue to rise due to maintenance of existing servers, including power and cooling.
Thus end-users are embarking on consolidation -- as a result, virtualization -- in order to increase server utilization. Saxena also sees further investments along these areas.
There were 12 respondents from the Philippines in the survey.
Saxena said Filipino CIOs are most concerned about sharing IT resources internally across various departments rather than in "silos," or each running their own infrastructure.
IBM is using the survey in promoting its "new enterprise data center" concept, which states that "dynamic" data centers will be driven by software and services.
"Typically, consolidation initially increases hardware utilization but based on customer feedback, the real payoff is faster deployment of new IT environments," said Michael Shallcross, IT strategy and architecture services manager for IBM Asia Pacific global technology services.
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