Data Growth is Top Challenge for IT

Dealing with the huge growth of data is the biggest challenge for larger companies, according to the results of a new survey from Gartner (News - Alert).

Among the 1,000 IT folks polled, 47 percent ranked data growth at the top of the list of the three heftiest challenges. As a result, 62 percent of them say they’ll put money into data archiving or data retirement by the end of next year. But they’ll also look at other tools and technologies to help stem the tide of data growth, including data security, storage consolidation, storage management, and data reduction.

Data growth is one key factor that drives costs for hardware, software, maintenance, administration, and other services, notes Gartner, putting the onus on IT to find specific technologies to control growth and the associated costs.

System performance and scalability was tagged as the next largest data center challenge, cited by 37 percent of those polled. With the downturn in the economy, many companies avoided spending money to upgrade their infrastructure and are now dealing with technology that’s either old or obsolete. As the economy starts to revive, large enterprises will need to focus on some much-needed and overdue upgrades.

Network congestion and connectivity architecture made the list as the third biggest challenge now facing IT folks, mentioned by 36 percent of the people surveyed. The latest generation of servers with multicore processors requires beefier network connections, especially if those servers are virtualized with several virtual machines running on a single box. Traditional LAN switches may not be up to the task of handling the increased I/O, challenging IT to invest in more powerful network hardware.

The increasing growth of mobile workers is also likely to put more demand on the WAN, according to Gartner, which advises IT to look at the full picture to handle their network infrastructure rather than taking a piecemeal or silo approach. More than half of those surveyed said they do plan to increase capacity at their data centers, while 30 percent are looking to build new data centers.

Gartner also asked respondents what will be the three more important factors driving a change in IT corporate strategy through the end of next year. Business continuity and availability came in first, cited by 50 percent of those polled. Cost containment was second, listed by 37 percent, and improving user service levels and satisfaction was mentioned by 36 percent.

To compile its study, Gartner questioned 1,004 IT admins from larger enterprises among eight different countries. The survey was conducted from June to August of this year.