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Symantec Reports on Data Centers
Data center managers adopt virtualization, server consolidation
October 30, 2007
2 Min Read
CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced the findings of its worldwide State of the Data Center Research report, revealing that data center managers are implementing virtualization and server consolidation strategies to manage the growing complexities in todays data center. Symantec’s report suggests data center managers face onerous and complicated challenges resulting from rapidly rising Service Level Agreements (SLAs), staffing difficulties, increasing expenditures and data center growth.
Pervasive Challenges: Service Level Agreements, Staffing and Growth
Research results suggest the primary challenges for data center managers are stringent internal service-level agreements, ongoing data center growth and staffing issues. Budget growth is not keeping pace with data center growth, while stringent SLAs mean data centers must deliver ever-increasing levels of speed, agility and availability. While increased SLAs may indicate the value IT can deliver to the business, if they are unmet the performance of the business may suffer. According to research results:
65 percent of respondents report formal internal SLAs exist in their organization.
32 percent report service-level demands have rapidly increased.
51 percent report they’ve had more difficulty meeting service-level demands during the past two-year period.
The research suggests that ongoing data center challenges such as complexity, heterogeneity and an ongoing skill shortage are driving the difficulty in meeting SLAs. Both qualitative and quantitative research indicate finding qualified IT staff who understand business issues is more problematic than understaffing problems caused by budget constraints. To add to these challenges, data center growth is persistent and expected to continue, driving enormous costs. Research shows that Global 2000 enterprises are spending more than $6.6 billion annually1 to help manage data center complexity. According to the research results:
52 percent of respondents report their data centers are currently understaffed.
69 percent of respondents reveal their data centers are growing at least 5 percent per year, while 11 percent report 20 percent growth or more per year.
The average reported budget increase during the last two-year period is a modest 7 percent worldwide.
Once adjusted for an average rate of 3 percent inflation, data center budget growth has been minimal during the past five years. Findings indicate that organizations are forced to spend larger portions of their limited budget to keep the business up and running, as opposed to innovating and adding value to the business.
Symantec Corp.
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