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ROBO IT Moves Front and Centralized
August 2011
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Greetings!
ESG's latest research report, Remote Office/Branch Office Technology Trends, examines the IT priorities and challenges currently facing remote office/branch office (ROBO) locations, and how organizations plan to address those challenges. The survey of 454 senior IT professionals working at corporate headquarters locations of midmarket (i.e., 100 to 999 employees) and enterprise (i.e., 1000 employees or more) organizations and responsible for providing IT support for their company's ROBOs revealed a key theme: centralization.  Based on the data collected from this survey, there are several proof points that ROBO-specific budgets, staff, applications, and data are being centralized: - Purchase decisions. The vast majority of organizations report that final ROBO IT purchasing decisions are made at headquarters locations by corporate IT executives.
- ROBO headcount. In terms of localized IT support, nearly one-third (31%) of organizations report that none of their ROBO locations has dedicated on-site IT staff.
- Application deployment. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of organizations currently host the majority of the corporate applications and/or IT services utilized by their ROBOs at a central location, with ROBO-based users accessing them over the WAN. And while this is still expected to be the case for most three years from now, the number of organizations that will leverage the SaaS model to deliver the majority of applications and/or IT services to their ROBO users will quadruple over that period (see above chart).
- Plans for desktop virtualization. Looking forward, nearly one-third (32%) will use desktop virtualization to host desktop environments and deliver them to users at the edge in an on-demand fashion for improved application performance and accessibility.
- Centralized backup. More than one-quarter (26%) of organizations currently back up data from ROBOs over the WAN directly to a centralized corporate site, compared to the mere 7% employing this methodology back in 2007. Of those organizations currently using an on-site data protection strategy, 40% expect to move to a centralized backup solution over the next 24 months.
The report is chock full of additional survey results and analysis in the areas of networking, security, virtualization, storage, and data protection. Also, in the next few weeks, Bob Laliberte and I will be hosting a webinar for ESG clients on the ROBO report findings. Please join us on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 from 11:00 AM till 12:00 PM EDT for the ESG Research Webinar: Exploring the IT Challenges of Remote Office/Branch Office Locations. Register today! (note: premium subscription clients only) --Lauren Whitehouse, ESG Senior Analyst  ESG will be attending VMWorld 2011... will you? If you would like to schedule an appointment with ESG Analysts or ESG Client Relations at VMWorld please contact Laura Ghizzoni. ESG Senior Analyst Julie Lockner will be attending the CIO Retail Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, August 28th through August 31st. Big Data is the big talk among data center vendors. But what does this really mean for CIOs in the Retail industry that are currently challenged with already growing data volumes? What is Big today will no doubt be Bigger tomorrow. According to ESG's recent data management research, managing data growth and keeping up with application performance requirements are top priorities. During this session, Julie will share what users are doing and plan to do to address these challenges. Spotlight on ESG in Law Technology News: The article Customers, Service Providers May Have E-Discovery Gap by Evan Koblentz features ESG analyst Katey Wood's Market Landscape Report Initial Case Assessments with e-Discovery. Below you will find links to recently published content on ESG's website. |
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Research Reports
(note: premium subscription clients only)
Remote Office/Branch Office Technology Trends
by Bill Lundell, Jennifer Gahm, John McKnight, Jon Oltsik, Lauren Whitehouse
data center, storage, networking, servers
According to the US Census Bureau, enterprises with 5,000 or more employees have an average of 394 physical establishments. Many of these are remote and branch offices (ROBOs), which all require connectivity and secure access to central information. This has presented a perennial challenge to IT professionals everywhere who seek ways to maximize efficiencies within their ROBO environments.
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Market Landscape Reports
(note: premium subscription clients only)
Navigating VMware Backup and Recovery Approaches and Solutions
by Lauren Whitehouse
backup, data protection, server virtualization The flux caused by x86 server virtualization initiatives has been either a boon and bane for IT organizations, especially when it comes to data protection. ESG research shows that backup and recovery of virtual server environments ranks highly as a top initiative and area of investment. However, there is often confusion regarding which approach makes sense for virtualized workloads. Organizations are debating whether or not the incumbent backup vendor can meet and keep pace with the new requirements for protecting virtualized applications or whether it makes sense (given the upheaval associated with virtualization initiatives anyway) to standardize on a data protection solution purpose-built for the VMware environment. Further, there is ongoing discussion whether or not a traditional backup/recovery software approach is the way to go, or whether storage system-initiated copies are a better alternative. This market landscape report examines the trends impacting VMware backup and recovery, categorizes and reviews the market's vendors and solutions, and provides guidelines for purchasing considerations.
Data Center Networking in Transition
by Jon Oltsik, Perry Laberis
data center networking, networking Driven by data center consolidation, server virtualization, and network convergence, data center networking technology is in the midst of a profound transition. As part of this evolution, IT professionals can expect to hear new terminology like "flat networks," "programmable flow," and "virtual Ethernet bridging" from networking vendors. What do these terms mean? Are they really important or just marketing hype? Most importantly, how will data center networking change and in what timeframe? This ESG market landscape report answers these and many other questions. The report is intended to provide a clear roadmap for IT professionals so they can plan appropriately for data center networking technology innovation and capitalize on its use. Storage Tiering
by Mark Peters
storage
It's almost impossible to conduct a conversation with a storage vendor without raising the topic of "storage tiering." Along with "virtualization" and "cloud," it's one of those de rigueur phrases. And, like those other two, storage tiering suffers from an over-exposure that can assume familiarity and understanding where it does not exist. While there is tremendous user value to be gained from employing storage tiering, there is also at times a lack of clarity and of semantic accuracy in the market. This report sets out to address this and to outline both the generic value of storage tiering as well as the specific landscape of the range of tools and options that are available. |
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Lab Reports
EMC NetWorker: Intuitive, Centralized Data Protection Management
by David Chapa, Vinny Choinski
data protection
Data protection activities remain a key area of investment for most organizations and represent a core function of the IT department. But constantly growing data volumes puts pressure on data protection systems, processes, and budgets, particularly as server virtualization deployments aggregate workloads and strain resources. This ESG Lab Validation Report describes the testing of several new capabilities of EMC NetWorker backup and recovery software that improve backup performance and help to consolidate backup and replication management.
Huawei Symantec S5600T: Easy to Manage, Highly Reliable, High Performance, Green Storage
by Judson Zhou
storage
The Oceanspace S5600T (S5600T), a member of the of Huawei Symantec (HS) T-series, offers a modular design, robust hardware, and SmartCache functionality to deliver an impressive combination of high performance, high availability, and advanced resource monitoring and management. Although designed for the midmarket, the S5600T has the functionality and capability needed to meet enterprise's business requirements.
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Briefs
The Quantum DXi6700 Family: DXi6701 and DXi6702
by David Chapa
data protection
IT organizations attempting to manage data growth and improve backup and recovery processes while adhering to budget constraints are pressured to identify solutions that will improve overall operations and show a speedy return on investment. Considering deduplication as a remedy brings compromises in performance, total cost of ownership, and adaptability for future growth. Quantum continues to respond with a portfolio of solutions targeted at these primary pain points. Built upon the foundation of the DXi 2.0 software, Quantum's new additions to the DXi6700 Family, the DXi6701 and DXi6702, are highly scalable, high performing, multi-protocol, deduplication appliances designed to help future-proof investments and create long term value.
Quest Introduces New NetVault Backup Licensing Model
by Lauren Whitehouse
backup and recovery software, data protection
Quest Software recently introduced an alternative licensing program for NetVault Backup customers. In addition to perpetual, component-based licensing, the company offers a license based on the volume of data being protected by NetVault Backup.
Xyratex Unveils ClusterStor
by Terri McClure
storage
Xyratex has been steadily expanding its business, evolving from providing storage enclosures to add Integrated Application Platforms and now OEM solutions. The latest addition is the ClusterStor scale-out HPC storage solution. This is a Lustre-based scale-out storage solution that Xyratex will offer through its OEM channels. This move expands Xyratex's addressable market and gives it a foundational product it can build on to offer turnkey solutions to cloud service providers as the market evolves and they become the OEM channel of the future.
EMC Symmetrix VMAXe: A Missing Piece of the Storage Jigsaw
by Mark Peters
storage
Acknowledging that there are many types of storage users with changing business needs, EMC has formally launched its new Symmetrix VMAXe, which offers enterprise class functionality in a smaller and simpler package than its "big brother," VMAX. EMC is well aware that this piece of the storage jigsaw might have some overlap to its existing portfolio, but there's a big enough market space for this to make business sense while also being likely to make a significant number of new-as well as existing-EMC users (and EMC's channel!) very happy.
VMware Launches Cloud Infrastructure
by Mark Bowker
cloud computing, server virtualization
With VMWare's Cloud Infrastructure launch come features designed to push more tier-1 applications to a virtual platform. Along with a focus on enterprise-level functionality and hybrid cloud management, VMware is focused on advancing customers beyond the initial 20-30% virtualization levels they have achieved today. The company has proven its value as businesses focus on consolidation and cost containment. Now, VMware needs to lead its customers to embrace its newer features and functionality or risk being in a temporary holding pattern for existing applications.
Arkeia Gets Progressive
by Lauren Whitehouse
data protection software and services
Arkeia Network Backup is an ideal deduplication solution for small to medium-sized enterprises. The keystone of the company's version 9 release is the integration of data reduction technology-something Arkeia refers to as progressive deduplication-derived from its November 2009 acquisition of Kadena.
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