* What you can learn from this year's NW500 survey
We’ve spent the past few weeks talking about training and today I want to talk about education, specifically the education that will help you design the IT infrastructure that will keep your company competitive.
Network World recently completed our annual Network World 500 study, in which 500 network executives were polled on a variety of questions. The survey findings throw light on the new technologies that your colleagues – some of whom may be your counterparts at your company’s competitors – are examining or using. Learning about what your competitors are doing may help you understand whether your organization is ahead or needs to boost investments in certain areas.
One of the key findings is that while companies continue to be cost-conscious, they are willing to spend a premium on certain technologies that improve performance. For instance, reliance on storage-area networks is growing while DASD, a less expensive storage technology, is being used less, according to Network World and Research Concepts, which carried out the survey. Also, 10 Gigabit Ethernet products are just starting to appear and are extremely pricey, but they are on some organizations’ shopping lists already, the report says.
There is also a lot of interest in 802.11n, a wireless technology that promises throughput of more than 100M bit/sec in 20-MHz to 40-MHz of bandwidth. Current IEEE 802.11a/g WLANs operate with raw data rates up to 54M bit/sec, but the actual throughputs are generally no more than 20M bit/sec.
“The implementation of technologies that maximize network performance means the organization can compete more effectively,” the report says. “While cost savings impact the bottom line, improving the way business is conducted helps long-term viability, which makes technology investment important.”
Bolstering IT security, ensuring regulatory compliance and improving or updating data center infrastructures were cited as the most important IT activities over the next 12 months by 84%, 83% and 65% of respondents, respectively. Only 17% of execs cited beginning a shift toward utility computing was top priority, while a small 11% named outsourcing to offshore service providers as important.
Here are some other findings from the survey, according to technology sectors:
* Security: Respondents said they were most concerned with worms and viruses (61%) and inside hacks (58%).
* Ethernet technologies: An average of 36% of servers are connected by Gigabit Ethernet. 10 Gigabit Ethernet is starting to gain attention among companies looking to increase bandwidth in large data centers and campus backbones.
* Wireless LANs: 58% of companies have already implemented WLANs, with 8% planning to over the next 12 months. However, 23% said they had no implementation plans.
* VoIP: 39% of respondents have already implemented VoIP and another 24% will implement in 2 years. The majority of execs cited cost savings as the primary driver for deployment.
* VPN: Eight out of 10 respondents (82%) said security is motivating them to deploy IP VPN. Most organizations either take a do-it-yourself approach (42%) or a combination of DIY and purchasing carrier services (43%) to IP VPN deployment.
* 64-bit processors: 29% of execs said they have some Intel 64-bit processors deployed. Another 42% will deploy in 2 years.
See the editorial links for more commentary on the NW500 survey.
