2022

IBM Z, IBM Power Systems & Lenovo ThinkSystem Servers Most Secure, Toughest to Crack

2022, 2023, Featured, ITIC Reports & Surveys / By Laura DiDio

For the fourth straight year, enterprises ranked mission critical servers from IBM, Lenovo, Huawei and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (in that order) as the most secure platforms which experienced the least amount of successful data breaches and proved the most formidable for hackers to crack.

Only a miniscule 0.1% of IBM Z mainframes suffered unplanned downtime due to a successful data breach. And just two percent (2%) of IBM Power Systems; two percent (2%) of Lenovo Think Systems; three percent (3%) of Huawei KunLun and four percent (4%) of HPE Superdome servers experienced downtime, application inaccessibility and productivity disruptions due to security attacks.

Those are the results of ITIC’s 2022 Global Server Hardware Security survey which compared the security features and functions of 18 different server platforms. ITIC’s independent Web-based survey polled 1,550 businesses worldwide across 30 different vertical market sectors from January through mid-November 2022.

ITIC’s latest study found that strong security enabled IBM, Lenovo, Huawei and HPE corporate enterprises to lower annual IT operational costs related to cyberattacks by 27% to over 60%, compared to the least secure server hardware distributions. .

IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE and Cisco hardware (in that order) recorded the top overall scores in every security category, successfully solidifying and improving their top positions as the most secure and reliable server platforms despite a significant 86% spike in security hacks and data breaches over the past two and a half years.

The top servers led by the IBM Z; IBM POWER; the Lenovo ThinkSystem; the Huawei KunLun and HPE (in that order), all scored their respective best security performances in the latest poll. These vendors achieved the best security results among 18 mainstream server hardware platforms in every security category, including:

The fewest number of successful security hacks/data breaches.
The least amount of overall unplanned server downtime for any reason and the least amount of unplanned server downtime due to a data breach incident.
The fastest Mean Time to Detection (MTTD) from the onset of the attack until the company isolated and shut it down.
The fastest Mean Time to Remediation (MTTR) to restore servers, applications and networks to full operation.
The least amount of lost, stolen, destroyed, damaged or changed data as a direct consequence of a security data breach (e.g. Ransomware, phishing scam or CEO fraud).
The least amount of monetary losses due to a successful security hack.
The highest confidence in the embedded security of the server hardware to deliver alerts/warnings and repel security attacks and data breaches.

The IBM Z mainframe outperformed all other server distributions – delivering near foolproof security and true fault tolerant seven nines or better (99.9999999%) uptime and reliability. Only a minuscule – 0.1% – of IBM Z mainframes and 0.2% of IBM LinuxONE III systems experienced a successful security breach.

IBM standalone Power Systems and the Lenovo ThinkSystem servers were in a statistical tie; with only two percent (2%) of respondents reporting a successful hack over the last 12 months. Only a minuscule – 0.1% – of IBM Z mainframes and IBM LinuxONE III systems experienced a successful security breach. The IBM Power8, Power9 and Power10 servers again delivered top notch security among all mainstream hardware distributions with 95% of survey respondents reporting their firms were able to identify and thwart attempted security penetrations immediately or within the first 10 minutes of detection.

The Lenovo ThinkSystem servers achieved the best security scores among all x86 server distributions for the fourth year in a row. Lenovo ThinkSystem servers similarly delivered the best MTTD rates among all Intel x86-based servers. A 95% of majority of Lenovo ThinkSystem survey respondents said their IT and security administrators detected and repelled attempted hacks and data breaches immediately or within the first 10 minutes of the penetration.

Huawei’s KunLun mission critical platform was close behind with three percent (3%) of customers experiencing a successful hack and four percent (4%) HPE Integrity Superdome customers said they had a successful security breach over the last year.

Just over one-in-ten or 11% of Cisco UCS servers were successfully hacked. Cisco’s hardware performed extremely well, particularly considering that a large portion of UCS servers are deployed in remote locations and at the network edge. Inexpensive unbranded White box servers again proved the most porous – nearly half – 48% – of survey respondents said their businesses were hacked. This is a four percent (4%) increase compared to ITIC’s 2021 survey.

Security is, and will remain the number one issue that either fortifies or undermines the reliability of mission critical server hardware, server operating system and applications. Businesses that hope to keep their data assets secure and ensure continuous, uninterrupted operations are well advised to deploy the most secure server hardware, server OS and application infrastructure. Security is and will continue to rank as the number one cause of unanticipated downtime for the foreseeable future. Any organization that ignores security does so at its own risk. Ask yourselves: what does my organization have to lose and how much is my company willing to risk?

IBM Z, IBM Power Systems & Lenovo ThinkSystem Servers Most Secure, Toughest to Crack Read More »

Server and Application Reliability by the Numbers: Understanding “The Nines”

2022, 2023, Featured, ITIC Reports & Surveys, Uncategorized / By Laura DiDio

Reliability/Uptime by the Numbers

Organizations measure server and application reliability percentages in “nines.” There is an order of magnitude difference of server and application reliability and uptime between each additional “nine.” Four nines – 99.99% – reliability equals 52.56 minutes of unplanned per server/per annum downtime or 4.32 minutes of per server monthly unplanned downtime (See Table 1). By contrast, five nines – 99.999% – is the equivalent of 5.26 minutes of unplanned per server/per annum and just 25.9 seconds of monthly unplanned system downtime. The highly sought after continuous uptime and availability levels of six nines equals a near-imperceptible 2.59 seconds of per server unplanned monthly downtime, while seven nines equals 3.15 seconds of yearly system downtime.

Table1 below depicts the availability percentages and the equivalent number of annual, monthly and weekly hours and minutes of per server/per annum downtime. It illustrates the business and monetary impact on operations. ITIC publishes this table in every one of its Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability reports. It serves as a useful reference guide to enable organizations to calculate downtime and determine their levels of server uptime.

Table 1: Reliability/Uptime by the Numbers

Reliability %	Downtime per year	Downtime per month	Downtime per week
90% (one nine)	36.5 days	72 hours	16.8 hours
95%	18.25 days	36 hours	8.4 hours
97%	10.96 days	21.6 hours	5.04 hours
98%	7.30 days	14.4 hours	3.36 hours
99% (two nines)	3.65 days	7.20 hours	1.68 hours
99.5%	1.83 days	3.60 hours	50.4 minutes
99.8%	17.52 hours	86.23 minutes	20.16 minutes
99.9% (three nines)	8.76 hours	43.8 minutes	10.1 minutes
99.95%	4.38 hours	21.56 minutes	5.04 minutes
99.99% (four nines)	52.56 minutes	4.32 minutes	1.01 minutes
99.999% (five nines)	5.26 minutes	25.9 seconds	6.05 seconds
99.9999% (six nines)	31.5 seconds	2.59 seconds	0.605 seconds
99.99999% (seven nines)	3.15 seconds	0.259 seconds	0.0605 seconds

Source: ITIC 2022 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey

The aforementioned metrics clearly underscore that the IBM z14, z15 and the newest z16; along with the LinuxONE III platform continue to maintain continuous levels of reliability, with just 0.0043 minutes of unplanned monthly per server downtime. This equates to just 3.15 seconds of unplanned per server annual downtime which is the equivalent of “seven nines” of true fault tolerant uptime. They were followed closely by the IBM Power8, Power9 and Power10 with one (1) minute of per server unplanned monthly downtime and the Lenovo x86-based ThinkSystem with 1.10 minutes of per server unplanned downtime each month. In practical terms, this means there is minimal or imperceptible impact on daily business operations, end user productivity and corporate revenue.

In 2022 and heading into 2023, a price tag of $100,000 (USD) for one hour of downtime for a single server is extremely conservative for all but the smallest micro SMBs with one to 25 employees. It equates to $1,670 per minute/per server. Hourly cost of downtime calculated at $300,000 equals about $5,000 per server/per minute. The cost of a more severe or protracted hourly outage that a business estimated at $1 million (USD) is the equivalent of $16,700 per server/per minute.

ITIC’s 2022 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey found that 91% of respondents now estimate that one hour of downtime costs the firm $301,000 or more; this is an increase of two (2) percentage points in less than two year. Of that number, 44% of those polled indicated that hourly downtime costs now exceed $1 million. Since 2021, only one (1%) percent of respondents said a single hour of downtime costs them $100,000 or less. Nine percent (9%) of respondents valued hourly downtime at $101,000 to $300,000.

There are many cost variables. For instance, an issue that takes down a server(s) running a non-business essential application; or downtime that occurs in off-peak or non-usage hours, may have minimal to no impact on business operations and negligible financial consequences.

On the other end of the spectrum, cloud-based server outages involving a virtualized server running two, three or four instances of a business-critical application housed in a single physical machine have the potential to double, triple or quadruple business losses when daily business operations are interrupted and employees and business partners, suppliers and other stakeholders are denied access to critical data.

The most expensive hourly downtime scenario presented in Table 2 depicts per server/per minute outage expense impacting 1,000 servers at an organization that values an hour of downtime at $10 million. In this example, a large enterprise could conceivably sustain crippling losses of $166,667,000 per server/per minute.

The aforementioned ITIC Hourly Downtime monetary figures represent only the costs associated with remediating the actual technical issues and business problems that caused the server or OS to fail. They do not include legal fees, criminal or civil penalties the company may incur or any “goodwill gestures” that the firm may elect to pay customers (e.g., discounted or free equipment or services).

Server and Application Reliability by the Numbers: Understanding “The Nines” Read More »

ITIC 2022 Global Server Reliability Survey Finds IBM Z, IBM Power Systems, Lenovo ThinkSystem deliver top reliability

2022, 2023, Featured, ITIC Reports & Surveys / By Laura DiDio

The IBM Z and IBM Power Systems continue to dominate, delivering the best server reliability, uptime and security for the 14th straight year.
Lenovo’s ThinkSystem servers provide the top reliability and security among all x86 server distributions for nearly nine straight years.
Huawei KunLun, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) Superdome mission critical servers also register high reliability and security rankings challenging the leaders. Cisco continues to up its game with robust network edge reliability and security.
IBM Z and IBM Power Systems deliver over 40x more uptime than least efficient “White box” platforms and 60x lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The Lenovo ThinkSystem, Huawei KunLun and HPE Superdome (in that order) delivered the highest reliability among x86 platforms.
Over three-quarters of businesses – 78% – cite security as the top cause of unplanned downtime and 64% said human error causes unplanned outages.

Mission critical server and server OS distributions from IBM, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE), Huawei and Cisco continue to deliver the highest levels of inherent reliability and availability among 18 different server platforms despite a continuing spike in security hacks, increasing ecosystem complexities and ongoing supply chain challenges.

For the 14th consecutive year, the IBM Z, the LinuxONE III and the IBM Power Systems remained the preeminent server platforms posting the best across-the-board reliability ratings among 18 mainstream distributions. Some 96% of IBM Z mainframes and LinuxONE III server customers recorded seven nines (99.99999%) of true fault tolerant reliability and availability. The IBM Z, and LinuxONE III recorded a near-imperceptible 0.0043 minutes of per server unplanned monthly outages or just 3.15 seconds of unplanned per server downtime annually (See Table 1). This was followed by 93% of IBM Power Systems clients said the IBM systems achieved five and six nines of system reliability and availability (See Exhibit 1). The IBM Power8, Power9 and Power10 servers posted just one (1) minute each of unplanned per server monthly downtime.

The Lenovo ThinkSystem servers followed closely and posted the highest levels of reliability among all x86 hardware distributions for the eighth consecutive year. A 92% majority of Lenovo servers attained five and six nines of reliability, posting just over one minute – 1.10 – of unplanned per server monthly downtime. The Huawei KunLun and Fusion servers, the HPE Superdome and the Cisco UCS hardware (in that order), rounded out the top five most reliable server platforms.

Those are the results of the ITIC 2022 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability independent Web-based survey. It polled 1,550 corporations across 30 vertical market segments worldwide on the reliability, performance and security of the leading mainstream on-premises and cloud-based servers from July through mid-November 2022. In order to maintain objectivity, ITIC accepted no vendor sponsorship.

The increased server and server operating system uptime and availability enabled the IBM, Lenovo, Huawei, HPE and Cisco servers (in that order) to deliver, the most economical Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) among all mainstream distributions in datacenters, at the network edge and in hybrid cloud environments.

The Lenovo ThinkSystem servers likewise improved their uptime and availability recording the best reliability among all x86 servers – a scant 1.10 minutes of per server unplanned monthly outages. The Huawei KunLun and Fusion platforms also improved uptimes with 1.27 minutes each of unplanned per server outage, along with the HPE Superdome platform which averaged 1.44 minutes of unanticipated per server downtime. Cisco’s UCS servers also hung tough. Cisco servers frequently are installed at the network edge/perimeter, which is often the first line of attack. The Cisco UCS servers registered two (2) minutes of monthly unplanned per server downtime.

The top server reliability vendors – led by IBM, Lenovo, HPE and Huawei – also delivered the strongest server security, experiencing the fewest number of successful data breaches and the least amount of downtime due to security-related incidents.

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De-mystifying Cloud Computing: the Pros and Cons of Cloud Services

2022, Laura's Articles, Laura's Insights ITIC Blog / By Laura DiDio

Cloud computing has been a part of the corporate and consumer lexicon for the past 15 years. Despite this, many organizations and their users are still fuzzy on the finer points of cloud usage and terminology.

De-mystifying the cloud

So what exactly is a cloud computing environment?

The simplest and most straightforward definition is that a cloud is a grid or utility style pay-as-you-go computing model that uses the web to deliver applications and services in real-time.

Organizations can opt to deploy a private cloud infrastructure where they host their services on-premise from behind the safety of the corporate firewall. The advantage here is that the IT department always knows what’s going on with all aspects of the corporate data from bandwidth and CPU utilization to all-important security issues.

Alternatively, organizations can choose a public cloud deployment in which a third party vendor like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud and other third parties host the services at an off-premises remote location. This scenario saves businesses money and manpower hours by utilizing the host provider’s equipment and management. All that’s needed is a web browser and a high-speed internet connection to connect to the host to access applications, services and data.

However, the public cloud infrastructure is also a shared model in which corporate customers share bandwidth and space on the host’s servers. Enterprises that prioritize privacy and require near impenetrable security and those that require more data control and oversight, typically opt for a private cloud infrastructure in which the hosted services are delivered to the corporation’s end users from behind the safe confines of an internal corporate firewall. However, a private cloud is more than just a hosted services model that exists behind the confines of a firewall. Any discussion of private and/or public cloud infrastructure must also include virtualization. While most virtualized desktop, server, storage and network environments are not yet part of a cloud infrastructure, just about every private and public cloud will feature a virtualized environment.

Organizations contemplating a private cloud also need to ensure that they feature very high (near fault tolerant) availability with at least “five nines” or “six nines – 99.999% or 99.9999% and even true fault tolerant “seven nines” – 99.99999% uptime to ensure uninterrupted operations.

Private clouds should also be able to scale dynamically to accommodate the needs and demands of the users. And unlike most existing, traditional datacenters, the private cloud model should also incorporate a high degree of user-based resource provisioning. Ideally, the IT department should also be able to track resource usage in the private cloud by user, department or groups of users working on specific projects for chargeback purposes. Private clouds will also make extensive use of AI, analytics, business intelligence and business process automation to guarantee that resources are available to the users on demand.

All but the most cash-rich organizations (and there are very few of those) will almost certainly have to upgrade their network infrastructure in advance of migrating to a private cloud environment. Organizations considering outsourcing any of their datacenter needs to a public cloud will also have to perform due diligence to determine the bona fides of their potential cloud service providers.

In 2022 and beyond, a hybrid cloud environment is the most popular model, chosen by over 75% of corporate enterprises. The hybrid cloud theoretically gives businesses the best of both worlds: with some services and applications being hosted on a public cloud while other specific, crucial business applications and services in a private or on-premises cloud behind a firewall.

Types of Cloud Computing Services

There are several types of cloud computing models. They include:

Software as a Service (SaaS) which utilizes the Internet to deliver software applications to customers. Examples of this are Salesforce.com, which has one of the most popular, widely deployed, and the earliest cloud-based CRM application and Google Apps, which is among the market leaders. Google Apps comes in three editions—Standard, Education and Premier (the first two are free). It provides consumers and corporations with customizable versions of the company’s applications like Google Mail, Google Docs and Calendar.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings; examples of this include the above-mentioned Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s top tier Azure Platform. The Microsoft Azure offering contains all the elements of a traditional application stack from the operating system up to the applications and the development framework. It includes the Windows Azure Platform AppFabric (formerly .NET Services for Azure) as well as the SQL Azure Database service. Customers that build applications for Azure will host it in the cloud. However, it is not a multi-tenant architecture meant to host your entire infrastructure. With Azure, businesses rent resources that will reside in Microsoft datacenters. The costs are based on a per usage model. This gives customers the flexibility to rent fewer or more resources depending on their business needs.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is exactly what its name implies: the entire infrastructure becomes a multi-tiered hosted cloud model and delivery mechanism. Public, private and hybrid should all be flexible and agile. The resources should be available on demand and should be able to scale up or scale back as business needs dictate.
Serverless This is a more recent technology innovation. And it can be a bit confusing to the uninitiated. A Serverless cloud is a cloud-native development model that enables cloud developers to build and run applications without having to manage servers. The developers do not manage, provision or maintain the servers when deploying code. The actual code execution is fully managed by the cloud provider, in contrast to the traditional method of writing and developing applications and then deploying them on a servers. To be clear, there are still servers in a serverless model, but they are abstracted away from application development.

Cloud computing—pros and cons

Cloud computing like any technology is not a panacea. It offers both potential benefits as well possible pratfalls. Before beginning any infrastructure upgrade or migration, organizations are well advised to gather all interested parties and stakeholders and construct a business plan that best suits their organization’s needs and budget. When it comes to the cloud, there are no absolutes. Many organizations will have hybrid clouds that include public and private cloud networks. Additionally, many businesses may have multiple cloud hosting providers present in their networks. Whatever your firm’s specific implementation it’s crucial to create a realistic set of goals, a budget and a deployment timetable.

Prior to beginning any technology migration organizations should first perform a thorough inventory and review of their existing legacy infrastructure and make the necessary upgrades, revisions and modifications. All stakeholders within the enterprise should identify the company’s current tactical business goals and map out a two-to-five year cloud infrastructure and services business plan. This should incorporate an annual operational and capital expenditure budget. The migration timetable should include server hardware, server OS and software application interoperability and security vulnerability testing; performance and capacity evaluation and final provisioning and deployment.

Public clouds—advantages and disadvantages

The biggest allure of a public cloud infrastructure over traditional premises-based network infrastructures is the ability to offload the tedious and time consuming management chores to a third party. This in turn can help businesses:

Shave precious capital expenditure monies because they avoid the expensive investment in new equipment including hardware, software and applications as well as the attendant configuration planning and provisioning that accompanies any new technology rollout.

Accelerated deployment timetable. Having an experienced third party cloud services provider do all the work also accelerates the deployment timetable and most likely means less time spent on trial and error.

Construct a flexible, scalable cloud infrastructure that is tailored to their business needs. A company that has performed its due diligence and is working with an experienced cloud provider can architect a cloud infrastructure that will scale up or down according to the organization’s business and technical needs and budget.

Public Cloud Downsides

Shared Tenancy: The potential downside of a public cloud is that the business is essentially “renting” or sharing common virtualized servers and infrastructure tenancy with other customers. This is much like being a tenant in a large apartment building. Depending on the resources of the particular cloud model, there exists the potential for performance, latency and security issues as well as acceptable response, and service and support from the cloud provider.

Risk: Risk is another potential pitfall associated with outsourcing any of your firm’s resources and services to a third party. To mitigate risk and lower it to an acceptable level, it’s essential that organizations choose a reputable, experienced third party cloud services provider very carefully. Ask for customer references. Cloud services providers must work closely and transparently with the corporation to build a cloud infrastructure that best suits the business’ budget, technology and business goals. To ensure that the expectations of both parties are met, organizations should create a checklist of items and issues that are of crucial importance to their business and incorporate them into service level agreements (SLAs). Be as specific as possible. These should include but are not limited to:

What types of equipment do they use?
How old is the server hardware? Is the configuration powerful enough?
How often is the data center equipment/infrastructure upgraded?
How much bandwidth does the provider have?
Does the service provider use open standards or is it a proprietary datacenter?
How many customers will you be sharing data/resources with?
Where is the cloud services provider’s datacenter physically located?
What specific guarantees, if any, will it provide for securing sensitive data?
What level of guaranteed response time will it provide for service and support?
What is the minimum acceptable latency/response time for its cloud services?
Will it provide multiple access points to and from the cloud infrastructure?
What specific provisions will apply to Service Level Agreements (SLAs)?
How will financial remuneration for SLA violations be determined?
What are the capacity ceilings for the service infrastructure?
What provisions will there be for service failures and disruptions?
How are upgrade and maintenance provisions defined?
What are the costs over the term of the contract agreement?
How much will the costs rise over the term of the contract?
Does the cloud service provider use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and state of the art AES encryption to transmit data?
Does the cloud services provider encrypt the resting data to prohibit and restrict access?
How often does the cloud services provider perform audits?
What mechanisms will it use to quickly shut down a hack, and can it track a hacker?
If your cloud services provider is located outside your country of origin, what are the privacy and security rules of that country and what impact will that have on your firm’s privacy and security issues?

Finally, the corporation should appoint a liaison who meets regularly with the designated counterpart at the cloud services provider. While a public cloud does provide managed hosting services, that does not mean the company should forget about it as though their data assets really did reside in an amorphous cloud! Regular meetings between the company and its cloud services provider will ensure that the company attains its immediate goals and that it is always aware and working on future technology and business goals. It will also help the corporation to understand usage and capacity issues and ensure that its cloud services provider(s) meets SLAs. Outsourcing any part of your infrastructure to a public cloud does not mean forgetting and abandoning it.

Private clouds—advantages and disadvantages

The biggest advantage of a private cloud infrastructure is that your organization retains control of its corporate assets and can safeguard and preserve its privacy and security. Your organization is in command of its own destiny. That can be a double-edged sword.

Before committing to build a private cloud model the organization must do a thorough assessment of its current infrastructure, its budget, and the expertise and preparedness of its IT department. Is your firm ready to assume the responsibility for such a large burden from both a technical and ongoing operational standpoint? Only you can answer that. Remember that the private cloud should be highly reliable and highly available—at least 99.999% uptime with built-in redundancy and failover capabilities. Many organizations struggle to attain and maintain 99.99% uptime and reliability which is the equivalent of 8.76 hours of per server, per annum downtime. When your private cloud is down for any length of time, your employees, business partners, customers and suppliers will be unable to access resources.

Private Cloud Downsides

The biggest potential upside of a private cloud is also potentially it’s biggest disadvantage. Namely: that the onus falls entirely on the corporation to achieve the company’s performance, reliability and security goals. To do so, the organization must ensure that its IT administrators and security professionals are up to date on training and certification. To ensure optimal performance, the company must regularly upgrade and rightsize its servers and stay current on all versions of mission critical applications – particularly with respect to licensing, compliance and installing the latest patches and fixes. Security must be a priority! Hackers are professionals. And hacking is big business. The hacks themselves — ransomware, Email phishing scams, CEO fraud etc. are more pervasive and more pernicious. And the cost of hourly downtime is more expensive than ever. ITIC’s latest survey data shows that 91% of midsize and large enterprises estimate that the average cost of a single hour of downtime is $300,000 or more. These statistics are just industry averages. They do not include any additional costs a company may incur due to penalties associated with civil or criminal litigation or compliance penalties. In other words: in a private cloud, the buck stops with the corporation.

Realistically, in order for an organization to successfully implement and maintain a private cloud, it needs the following:

Robust equipment that can handle the workloads efficiently during peak usage times.
An experienced, trained IT staff that is familiar with all aspects of virtualization, virtualization management, grid, utility and chargeback computing models.
An adequate capital expenditure and operational expenditure budget.
The right set of private cloud product offerings and service agreements.
Appropriate third party virtualization and management tools to support the private cloud.
Specific SLA agreements with vendors, suppliers and business partners.
Operational level agreements (OLAs) to ensure that each person in the organization is responsible for specific routine tasks and in the event of an outage.
A disaster recovery and backup strategy.
Strong security products and policies.
Efficient chargeback utilities, policies and procedures.

Other potential private cloud pitfalls include; deciding which applications to virtualize, vendor lock-in and integration, and interoperability issues. Businesses grapple with these same issues today in their existing environments.

Conclusions

Hybrid, public and private cloud infrastructure deployments will continue to experience double digit growth for the foreseeable future. The benefits of cloud computing will vary according to individual organization’s implementation. Preparedness and prior to deployment are crucial. Cloud vendors are responsible for maintaining performance, reliability and security. However, corporate enterprises cannot simply cede total responsibility to their vendor partners because the data assets are housed off-premises. Businesses must continue to perform their due diligence. All appropriate corporate enterprise stakeholder must regularly review and monitor performance and capacity; security; compliance and SLA results – preferably on a quarterly or semi-annual basis. This will ensure your organization achieves the optimal business and technical benefits. Keeping a watchful eye on security is imperative. Cloud vendors and businesses must work in concert as true business partners to achieve optimal TCO and ROI and mitigate risk.

De-mystifying Cloud Computing: the Pros and Cons of Cloud Services Read More »

The Cloud Gets Crowded and more Competitive

2022, Laura's Insights ITIC Blog / By Laura DiDio

The cloud is getting crowded.

In 2022 the cloud computing market – particularly the hybrid cloud – is hotter and more competitive than ever.

Corporate enterprises are flocking to the cloud as a way to offload onerous IT administrative tasks and more easily and efficiently manage increasingly complex infrastructure, storage and security. Migrating operations from the data center to the cloud can also greatly reduce their operational and capital expenditure costs.

Cloud vendors led by market leaders like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, SAP, Salesforce, Rackspace Cloud, and VMware, as well as China’s Alibaba and Huawei Cloud, are all racing to meet demand. The current accelerated shift to the cloud was fueled by the COVID-19 global pandemic which created supply chain disruptions and upended many aspects of traditional work life. Since 2020, government agencies, commercial businesses and schools shifted to remote working and learning. Although COVID is generally waning (albeit with continuing flare-ups), a hybrid work environment is the new normal. This in turn, makes a compelling business case for furthering cloud migrations.

In 2022, more than $1.3 trillion in enterprise IT spending is at stake from the shift to cloud, and that revenue will increase to nearly $1.8 trillion by 2025 according to the February 2022 report “Market Impact: Cloud Shift – 2022 Through 2025” by Gartner, Inc. in Stamford, Conn. Furthermore, Gartner’s latest research forecasts that enterprise IT spending on public cloud computing, within addressable market segments, will outpace traditional IT spending in 2025.

Hottest cloud trends in 2022

Hybrid Clouds

Hybrid cloud is exactly what its name implies: it’s a combination of public, private and dedicated on-premises datacenter infrastructure and applications. Companies can adopt a hybrid approach for specific use cases and applications – outsourcing some portions of their operations to a hosted cloud environment, while keeping others onsite. This approach lets companies continue to leverage and maintain their legacy data infrastructure as they migrate to the cloud.

Cloud security and compliance: There is no such thing as too much security. ITIC’s 2022 Global Server Hardware Security survey indicates that businesses experienced an 84% surge in security incidents like ransomware, email phishing scams and targeted data breaches over the last two years that were especially prevalent and commonplace. The hackers are extremely sophisticated; they choose their targets with great precision with the intent to inflict maximum damage and net the biggest payback. This trend shows no signs of abating. In 2021, the average cost of a successful data breach increased to $4.24 million (USD); this is a 10% increase from $3.86 million in 2020 according to the 2021 Cost of a Data Breach Study, jointly conducted by IBM and the Ponemon Institute. The $4.24 million average cost of a single data breach is the highest number in the 17 years since IBM and Ponemon began conducting the survey. It represents an increase of 10% in the last 12 months and 20% over the last two years. Not surprisingly, in 2021, 61% of malware directed at enterprises targeted remote employees via cloud applications. Any security breach will have a domino effect on regulatory compliance. In response, cloud vendors are doubling down on security capabilities and compliance certifications. There is now a groundswell of demand for Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) cloud security architecture designed to safeguard, monitor and access connectivity among myriad cloud applications services, as well as datacenter IT infrastructure and end user devices. SASE gives users a single sign-on capability across multiple cloud applications while ensuring compliance.

Cloud-based disaster recovery (DR): The ongoing concerns around security and compliance issues has also shone the spotlight on the importance of cloud-based disaster recovery. DR uses cloud computing to back up data and continue to run the necessary business processes in case of disaster. Organizations can utilize cloud-based DR for load balancing and to replicate cloud services across multiple cloud environments and providers. The result: enterprise transactions will continue uninterrupted if they lose access to their physical infrastructure in the event of an outage.

Cloud-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML): Another hot cloud trend is the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Both AI and ML allow organizations to cut through the data deluge and process and analyze the data to make informed business decisions and quickly respond to current and future market trends.

Top cloud vendors diversify, differentiate their offerings

There are dozens of cloud providers with more entering this lucrative market arena all the time. However, the top four vendors: Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and IBM Cloud currently account for over 70% of the installed base.

Amazon AWS: Amazon AWS has been the undisputed cloud market leader for the past decade. And it remains the number one vendor in 2022. Simply put, Amazon is everywhere and it has amazing brand recognition. Amazon AWS offers a wide array of services that appeal to companies of all sizes. The AWS cloud-based platform enables companies to build customized business solutions using integrated Web services. AWS also offers a broad portfolio of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). These include Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2), Elastic Beanstalk, Simple Storage Service (S3) and Relational Database Service (RDS). AWS also enables organizations to customize their infrastructure requirements and it provides them with a wide variety of administrative controls via its secure Web-based client. Other key features include: data backup and long-term storage; Service Level Agreement (SLA) of “four nines” – 99.99% – guaranteed SLA uptime; AI and ML capabilities; automatic capacity scaling; support for virtual private clouds and free migration tools.

As with all of the cloud vendors, the devil is in the details when it comes to pricing and cost. On the surface, the pricing model appears straightforward. AWS offers three different pricing options. They are “Pay as you Go,” “Save when you reserve” and “Pay less using more.” AWS also offers a free 12-month plan. Once the trial period has expired, the customer must either choose a paid plan or cancel its AWS subscription. While Amazon does provide a price calculator to estimate potential cloud costs, the many variables make it confusing to discern.

Microsoft Azure: Microsoft Azure ranks close behind Amazon AWS and the platform has been the catalyst for the Redmond, Washington software giant’s resurgence over the last 12 years. As Microsoft transitioned away from its core Windows-based business model, it used a tried and true success strategy: that is, the integration and interoperability of its various software offerings. Microsoft also moved its popular and well-entrenched legacy on-premises software application suites like Microsoft Office, SharePoint, SQL Server and others to the cloud. This gave customers a sense of confidence and familiarity when it came to adoption. Microsoft also boasts one of the tech industry’s largest partner ecosystem. Microsoft regularly refreshes and updates its cloud portfolio. In February, Microsoft unveiled three industry-specific cloud offerings: Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing and Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit. All of these services leverage the company’s security and AI functions. For example, new feature in Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, called Loan Manager will enable lenders to close loans faster by streamlining workflows and increasing transparency through automation and collaboration. Microsoft Azure offers all the basic and advanced cloud features and functions including: data backup and storage; business continuity and DR solutions; capacity planning; business analytics; AI and ML; single sign-on (SSO) and multifactor authentication as well as serverless computing. Ease of configuration and management are among its biggest advantages, and Microsoft does an excellent job of regularly updating the platform, but documentation and patches may lag a bit. Azure also offers a 99.95% SLA uptime guarantee which is a bit less than “four nines.” Again, the biggest business challenge for existing and prospective Azure customers is figuring out the licensing and pricing model to get the best deal.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP): Like Amazon, Google is a ubiquitous entity with strong brand name recognition. Google touts its ability to enable customers to scale their business as needed using flexible, open technology. Google Cloud consists of over 150 products and developer tools. GCP is a suite of cloud computing services provided by Google. It is a public cloud computing platform consisting of a variety of IaaS and PaaS services like compute, storage, networking, application development and Big Data analytics. The GCP services all run on the same cloud infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products, such as Google Search, Photos, Gmail and YouTube, etc. The GCP services can be accessed by software developers, cloud administrators and IT professionals over the internet or through a dedicated network connection. Notably, Google developed Kubernetes, an open source container standard that automates software deployment, scaling and management. GCP offers a wide array of cloud services including: storage and backup, application development, API management, virtual private clouds, monitoring and management services, migration tools, AI and ML. In order to woo customers, Google does offer very steep discounts and flexible contracts.

IBM: It’s no secret that IBM Cloud lagged behind market leaders AWS and Microsoft Azure, but Big Blue shifted into overdrive to close the gap. Most notably, IBM’s 2019 acquisition of Red Hat for $34 billion gave IBM much needed momentum, solidifying its hybrid cloud foundation and expanding its global cloud reach to 175 countries with over 3,500 hybrid cloud customers. And it shows. On April 19, IBM told Wall Street it expects to hit the top end of its revenue growth forecast for 2022. IBM’s Cloud & Data Platforms unit is the growth driver Cloud revenue grew 14% to $5 billion during the just ended March 31 quarter. Software and consulting sales which represent over 70% of IBM’s business were up 12% and 13%, respectively. IBM Cloud incorporates a host of cloud computing services that run on IaaS or PaaS. And the Red Hat Open Shift platform further fortifies IBM’s hybrid cloud initiatives. Open Shift is an enterprise-ready Kubernetes container platform built for an open hybrid cloud strategy. It provides a consistent application platform to manage hybrid cloud, multicloud, and edge deployments. According to IBM, 47 of the Fortune 50 companies use IBM as their private cloud provider. IBM has upped its cloud game with several key technologies. They include advanced quantum safe cryptography which safeguards applications running on the IBM z16 mainframe which is popular with high end IBM enterprise customers. Quantum-safe cryptography is as close to unbreakable or impenetrable encryption as a system can get. It uses quantum mechanics to secure and transmit data in a way that currently makes it near-impossible to hack. Another advanced feature is the AI on-chip inferencing, available on the newly announced IBM z16 mainframe. It can deliver up to 300 billion deep learning inference operations per day with 1ms response time. This will enable even non-data scientist customers to cut through the data deluge and predict and automate for “increased decision velocity.” AI on-chip inferencing can help customers prevent fraud before it happens by scoring up to 100% of transactions in real-time without impacting Service Level Agreements (SLAs). AI on-chip inferencing can also assist companies with compliance; automating the process to allow firms to cut audit preparation time from one month to one week to maintain compliance and avoid fines and penalties. The IBM Cloud also incorporates the Keep Your Own Key (KYOK) which uses z Hyperprotect in the IBM public cloud. Another key security differentiator is IBM’s Confidential Computing which protects sensitive data by performing computation in a hardware-based trusted execution environment (TEE). IBM Cloud goes beyond confidential computing by protecting data across the entire compute lifecycle. This provides customers with a higher level of privacy assurance – giving them complete authority over data at rest, data in transit and data in use. IBM further distinguishes its IBM Cloud from competitors via its extensive work in supporting and securing regulated workloads, particularly for Financial Services companies. The company’s Power Systems enterprise servers are supported in the IBM Cloud as well. IBM Cloud also offers full server customization; everything included in the server is handpicked by the customer so they don’t have to pay for features they may never use. IBM is targeting its Cloud offering at customers that want a hybrid, highly secure, open, multi-cloud and manageable environment.

Conclusions

Cloud computing adoption – most especially the hybrid cloud model – will continue to accelerate throughout 2022 and beyond. At the same time, vendors will continue to promote AI, machine learning and analytics as advanced mechanisms to help enterprises derive immediate, greater value and actionable insights to drive revenue and profitability.

Security and compliance issues will also be must-have crucial elements of every cloud deployment. Organizations now demand a minimum of four nines of uptime – and preferably, five and six nines of availability – 99.999% and 99.9999% to ensure uninterrupted business continuity. Vendors, particularly IBM with its newly Quantum-safe cryptography capabilities for its infrastructure and IBM Z mainframe, will continue to fortify cloud security and deploy AI.

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IBM’s New z16 Aims for the Cloud; Delivers Quantum-safe Cryptography & AI on-Chip Inferencing

2022, Breaking News, Laura's Insights ITIC Blog, Year / By Laura DiDio

IBM has once again outdone itself with its latest z16 mainframe server.

This latest offering has it all: unbreakable security; fast low-latency performance; top notch, easy-to-use analytics and true fault tolerant reliability that provides the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) and immediate return on investment (ROI) among 15 mainstream servers, industrywide.

The new IBM z16 delivers a cornucopia of embedded, and enhanced functions. This includes hardened security, leading edge AI and performance improvements. The result: the z16 delivers even greater cost efficiencies and a solid “seven nines” – 99.99999% – of uptime and reliability. The AI on-chip inferencing is icing on the cake. It makes readily accessible for all employees — not just data scientists.

The IBM z16 is indisputably the most powerful enterprise system from the zSystems family, to date. It incorporates 7nm technology with clock speeds of 5.2GHz, and it supports a maximum of 200 cores and up to 40TB of memory. According to IBM, this results in 25% more processor capacity per drawer and an 11% per core performance improvement. Overall, IBM said the z16 will deliver 40% better performance than the prior z15 models. And it’s engineered for hybrid cloud environments and provides interoperability with a wide range of environments including Linux and open source.

As impressive as those performance statistics are, the immediate and strategic impact of the IBM z16 is far more than a laundry list of “speeds and feeds.”

In a pre-briefing with analysts Ross Mauri, General Manager of IBM zSystems and LinuxONE, said IBM designed the IBM z16 to address enterprise customers’ need for top notch system performance, resiliency, security/data privacy and protection; dedicated workload accelerators and optimization across IBM’s entire product stack. Barry Baker, VP of Product Management for IBM zSystems said the openness of the IBM z16 enterprise system in supporting multiple operating system environments including Linux, z/OS and a variety of open source distributions like Ubuntu is a win for customers.
Mauri and Baker said the IBM z16 delivers automation, predictive and security capabilities across environments to help enterprise customers on their journey to hybrid cloud and AI. “We are focused on the entire ecosystem. IBM’s strategy has the zSystems platform integrated throughout our products and services offerings to build more value to our clients,” Mauri said.

IBM’s z16 addresses all of the hot button issues confronting organizations in the digital age: AI; performance and low latency; resiliency/security; hybrid cloud; workload optimization; cost efficiencies; interoperability and application modernization.

IBM z16 Quantum Cryptographic Security and AI on-chip Inferencing
The IBM z16 also includes several ground-breaking technology “firsts.” Two of the most noteworthy are the AI on-chip inferencing function and the quantum-safe cryptographic security capability.
The AI on-chip inferencing, which is available at no extra cost, is “a game changer”, IBM executives said. It can deliver up to 300 billion deep learning inference operations per day with 1ms response time. IBM executives also said that the IBM z16’s accelerated on-chip AI “effectively eliminates” latency in inferencing. The result: businesses can cut through the data deluge and predict and automate for “increased decision velocity.” It enables even “non data scientist” customers and users to analyze data and derive insights at heretofore unprecedented speeds. Additionally, leveraging AI in routine daily operational processes can proactively assist businesses to take preventive actions, like identifying and stopping outages before they occur.

AI on-chip inferencing can assist customers in preventing fraud before it happens by scoring up to 100% of transactions in real-time without impacting Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and helps companies keep up to date on fast-changing regulatory issues. The AI on-chip inferencing can also assist companies with compliance; automating the process to allow firms to cut audit preparation time from one month to one week to maintain compliance and avoid fines and penalties.

On the security front, the IBM z16 takes the pervasive encryption introduced in the z14 model and z15 System Recovery Boost and turbo charges it with quantum-safe cryptographic security. The z14 pervasive encryption model provided security at every layer of the stack. The z15 System Recovery Boost capability allowed businesses to drastically reduce the time it takes to shutdown, restart and process the backlog that occurred during a system outage.

Quantum-safe cryptography is as close to unbreakable or impenetrable encryption as a system can get. It uses quantum mechanics to secure and transmit data in a way that cannot be hacked (at least not yet).

The IBM z16 is the preeminent mainstream server platform for digital enterprises requiring nothing less than seven nines – 99.99999% — best-in-class fault tolerant reliability; quantum cryptographic security and AI on-chip acceleration across multi platforms from datacenters to hybrid clouds and the network edge while delivering the lowest TCO and immediate ROI.

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Information Technology Intelligence Consulting Corp. 2022 Editorial Calendar

2022, Editorial Calendars, Laura's Insights ITIC Blog / By Laura DiDio

March 2022: ITIC Sexual Harassment, Gender Bias and Pay Equity Survey

Description: ITIC’s third annual “Sexual Harassment, Gender Bias and Pay Equity Gap,” independent Web survey will poll approximately 1,200 to 1,500 women professionals worldwide across 47 different industries, with a special emphasis on STEM disciplines. The survey focuses on three crucial areas of workplace discrimination: Sexual Harassment, Gender Bias and Unequal Pay. It polls women professionals, ranging from interns to retirees on their workplace experiences and how they coped.

April: 2022 Hourly Cost of Downtime

Description: Downtime impacts every aspect of the business. It can disrupt operations and end user productivity, result in data losses and raise the risk of litigation. Downtime can also result in lost business and irreparably damage a company’s reputation. The cost of downtime continues to increase as do the business risks. ITIC’s 2019 Hourly Cost of Downtime survey found an 85 % majority of organizations now require a minimum of 99.99% availability. This is the equivalent of 52 minutes of unplanned outages related to downtime for mission critical systems and applications or just 4.33 minutes of unplanned monthly outage for servers, applications and networks. This survey will once again poll corporations on how much one hour of downtime costs their business – exclusive of litigation, civil or criminal penalties. ITIC will also interview customers and vendors across 10 key vertical markets including: Banking/Finance; Education; Government; Healthcare; Manufacturing; Retail; Transportation and Utilities. The Report will focus on the toll that downtime extracts on the business, its IT departments, its employees, its business partners, suppliers and its external customers. This report will also examine the remediation efforts involved in resuming full operations as well as the lingering or after-effects to the corporation’s reputation as the result of an unplanned outage.

April 2022: ITIC 2022 Security Trends and Threats in Datacenters, Cloud and the Network Edge

Description: Security, security, security! Security impacts every aspect of computing and networking operations in the Digital Age. And it’s never been more crucial as businesses, schools, government workers and consumers are working at home amidst the ongoing Nouvel and damaging security hack impacting the lives of millions of consumers and corporations. This Report will utilize the latest ITIC independent survey data to provide an overview of the latest trends in computer security including the latest and most dangerous hacks and what corporations can do to defend their data assets. Among the topics covered:

Security threats in the age of COVID-19
The most prevalent type of security hacks
The percentage of corporations that experienced a security hack
The duration of the security hack
The severity of the security hack
The cost of the security hack
Monetary losses experienced due to security breaches
Lost, damaged, destroyed or stolen data due to a security breach
The percentage of time that corporations spend securing their networks and data assets
Specific security policies and procedures companies are implementing
The issues that pose the biggest threats/risks to corporate security

May/June 2022: ITIC 2022 Global Cloud Reliability, Security and Usage Trends Survey

Description: Public, private and hybrid cloud adoption is rising exponentially, with over 20% CAG anticipated between 2022 and 2025. Corporations from SMEs to the largest multinational global enterprise customers are likewise increasing cloud/IaaS spending. By 2025, enterprise stakeholders worldwide will spend well over $200 billion in cloud products, services, security and storage. As organizations’ cloud usage grows, the reliability, availability and security of the various cloud hosting platforms is crucial. ITIC’s forthcoming Global Cloud Reliability, Security and Usage Trends Survey polls C-Suite executives, IT and security managers businesses in the top 15 vertical market segments worldwide on the reliability, uptime and security of the top cloud platforms including: Amazon Web Services (AWS); Microsoft Azure; Alibaba Group; Google Cloud Platform; IBM Cloud; Oracle Cloud; CenturyLink; Rackspace; OVHCloud; Digital Ocean and others. This independent Web-based survey will query cloud customers the amount of downtime experienced by individual cloud platforms including: the frequency, duration, severity and security issues associated with unplanned outages. It will also poll corporate enterprises on their satisfaction with technical service and support.

June 2022: ITIC 2022 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey

Description: ITIC’s 14^th Annual Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability polls businesses on the reliability, uptime and management issues involving the inherent reliability of over one dozen different server hardware platforms and server operating system. The poll queries corporations on the frequency, the duration, the severity and the causes associated with Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 outages. The results of this independent, non-vendor sponsored survey will provide businesses with the information they need to determine the TCO and ROI of their individual environments. The survey will also enable the server OS and server hardware vendors to see how their products rate among global users ranging from SMBs with as few as 25 people to the largest global enterprises with 100,000+ end users.

The 2022 ITIC Global Reliability Survey has also been updated and expanded to include questions on server-based reliability in private, public and hybrid clouds as well as security and interoperability issues. As always, ITIC’s Reliability survey will delve into the following issues:

Component level failure data comparisons between a wide range of server vendors including a comparison of IBM Z and IBM Power Servers and Intel-based x86 servers such as Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, HPE, Huawei, Inspur, Lenovo, Oracle and unbranded white box servers.
Percentage of component level failure data comparisons by vendor according to age (e.g. new to three months; three to six months; six months to 1 year; 1 to 2 years; 2 to 3 years; 3 to 4 years; 4 to 5 years; over five years).
Which component parts fail and frequency of failure
A percentage breakout of server parts failures for parts such as hard disk drives(HDD), processors, memory, power components, fans, or other
Where available, how the component failed, e.g., memory multi-bit errors, HDD read failures, processor L1/L2 cache errors, etc.

August: 2022 IoT Deployment and Usage Trends Survey and Report

Description: The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the hottest technologies. This ITIC Report will poll corporations on the business and technical challenges as well as the costs associated with IoT deployments. This IoT Report will also examine the ever present security risks associated with interconnected environments and ecosystems. ITIC’s IoT 2022 Deployment and Usage Trends Survey will also query global businesses on a variety of crucial issues related to their current and planned Internet of Things (IoT) usage and deployments such as how they are using IoT (e.g. on-premises versus Network Edge/Perimeter deployments); the chief benefits and biggest challenges and impediments to IoT upgrades. Vendors profiled for this report will include: AT&T, AWS, Bosch, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, EuroTech, General Electric (GE), Google, Hitachi, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Particle, PTC, Qualcomm, Samsung, SAP, Siemens, Software AG, and Verizon.

August/September: ITIC 2022 Global Server Hardware Server OS Reliability Survey Mid-Year Update

Description: This Report is the Mid-year update of ITIC’s Annual Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey. Each year ITIC conducts a second survey of selected questions from its Annual Reliability poll. ITIC also conducts new interviews with C-level executives and Network administrators to get detailed insights on the reliability of their server hardware and operating system software as well as the technical service and support they receive from their respective vendors. ITIC will also incorporate updated PowerPoint slides and statistics to accompany the report.

October/November: AI, Machine Learning and Data Analytics Market Outlook

Description: This Report will examine the pivotal role that AI, Machine Learning and IoT-enabled predictive and prescriptive Analytics plays in assisting businesses sort through the data deluge to make informed decisions and derive real business value from their applications. AI and Machine Learning take Data Analytics to new levels. They can help businesses identify new product opportunities and also uncover hidden risks. Machine intelligence is already built into predictive and prescriptive analytics tools, speeding insights and enabling the analysis of vast probabilities to determine an optimal course of action or the best set of options. Over time, more sophisticated forms of AI will find their way into analytics systems, further improving the speed and accuracy of decision-making. Rather than querying a system and waiting for a response, the trend has been toward interactivity using visual interfaces. In the near future, voice interfaces will become more common, enabling humans to carry on interactive conversations with digital assistants while watching the analytical results on a screen. Analytics makes businesses more efficient; it enables them to cut costs and lower ongoing operational expenditures. It also helps them respond more quickly and agilely to changing market conditions – making them more competitive and thus driving top line revenue in both the near term and long term strategic sales. Vendors Profiled: AppDynamics, BMC, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and SAS. It also discusses how non-traditional vendors in the carrier and networking segments e.g. Dell/EMC, GE, Google, Verizon and Vodafone have fully embraced AIOps and analytics via partnerships, acquisitions and Research and Development (R&D) initiatives and have moved into this space and challenged the traditional market leaders. And it will provide an overview of the latest Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and their impact on the Analytics industry.

December: ITIC 2022 Technology and Business Outlook

Description: This Report will be based on ITIC survey results that poll IT administrators and C-level executives on a variety of forward looking business and technology issues for the 2022 timeframe. Topics covered will include: Security, IT staffing and budgets; application and network infrastructure upgrades; hardware and software purchasing trends and cloud computing.

Survey Methodology

ITIC conducts independent Web-based surveys that contain multiple choice and essay questions. In order to ensure the highest degree of accuracy, we employ authentication and tracking mechanisms to prohibit tampering with the survey results and to prohibit multiple votes by the same party. ITIC conducts surveys with corporate enterprises in North America and in over 25 countries worldwide across a wide range of vertical markets. Respondents range from SMBs with 25 to 100 workers to the largest multinational enterprises with over 100,000 employees. Each Report also includes two dozen first person customer interviews and where applicable, vendor and reseller interviews. The titles of the survey respondents include:

Network administrators
VPs of IT
Chief information officers (CIOs)
Chief technology officers (CTOs)
Chief executive officers (CEOs)
Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs)
Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs)
Consultants
Application developers
Database Administrators
Telecom Manager
Software Developer
System Administrator
IT Architect
Physical Plant Facilities Manager
Operations Manager
Technical Lead
Cloud Managers/Specialists
IoT Manager
Server Hardware/Virtualization Manager

ITIC welcomes input and suggestion from its vendor and enterprise clients with respect to surveys, survey questions and topics for its Editorial Calendar. If there are any particular topics or questions in a specific survey that you’d like to see covered, please let us know and we will do our best to address it.

About Information Technology Intelligence Corporation (ITIC)

ITIC, founded in 2002, is a research and consulting firm based in suburban Boston. It provides primary research on a wide variety of technology topics for vendors and enterprises. ITIC’s mission is to provide its clients with tactical, practical and actionable advice and to help clients make sense of the technology and business events that influence and impact their infrastructures and IT budgets. ITIC can provide your firm with accurate, objective research on a wide variety of technology topics within the network infrastructure: application software, server hardware, networking, virtualization, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT) and Security (e.g. ransom ware, cyber heists, phishing scams, botnets etc.). ITIC also addresses the business issues that impact the various technologies and influence the corporate business purchasing decisions. These include topics such as licensing and contract negotiation; GDPR; Intellectual Property (IP); patents, outsourcing, third party technical support and upgrade/migration planning.

For more information visit ITIC’s website at: www.itic-corp.com.

To purchase or license ITIC Reports and Survey data contact: Fred Abbott

Email: fhabbott@valleyviewventures.com;

Valley View Ventures, Inc.

Phone: 978-254-1639

www.valleyviewventures.com

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