European businesses fearful of sinking under growing weight of IT expectations

Over 600 IT and business professionals were interviewed by Freeform Dynamics as part of the study, which examined the impact of evolving business practices on existing IT infrastructure in mid-sized businesses in the UK, France and Germany. The results identified a number of emerging business trends responsible for placing increasing strain on existing IT. Significantly, it also found confidence gaps amongst those tasked with adapting existing IT infrastructure to meet the new demands being placed on it.

As businesses evolve, network demands are increasing rapidly
Those questioned highlighted a range of evolving business practices currently impacting the performance of their business networks, along with others anticipated to make a significant impact in the future. Of those cited, the three deemed to be having the biggest current impact were:

1. Growing use of cloud services for business critical functions such as email and CRM (69%)
2. Increase in remote and mobile access to business networks (62%)
3. General increase in volume and diversity of network traffic (58%)
These findings illustrate the growing trend towards agile, data driven businesses and the challenges it brings to infrastructure not originally designed for this agility. However, the three areas most anticipated to cause problems in the future include:

1. New/changing compliance regulations (34%)
2. Use of cloud based infrastructure (34%)
3. M2M connectivity and the Internet of Things (32%)
These findings indicate that as business usage patterns continue to evolve, the cloud will become even more critical at an infrastructure level. Furthermore, new requirements such as M2M will put even greater demands on the network as usage increases, creating compliance-related challenges.

Network performance/reliability and security the most impacted areas
With network demand continuing to increase, the study identified network performance (74%), network reliability (66%) and security (66%) as the current areas most impacted. Despite businesses becoming increasingly intolerant of issues relating to any of these areas, it appears many are yet to commit to making the necessary infrastructure investments required. This reticence is inevitably causing concern amongst those tasked with maintaining the networks effectively, further evidenced by the fact that over 61% of respondents felt making the business case and obtaining funding was currently a significant inhibitor to network modernisation.

Significant work is required to fill gaps in existing critical infrastructure
When questioned about their confidence in the ability of existing infrastructure to cope with the new pressures placed on it, 94% of respondents alluded to some level of uncertainty or doubt in at least one critical area. The most uncertainty was found to be around the prospect of accommodating new compliance regulations, with 63% not fully confident in meeting increasingly stringent future requirements with existing systems.

However, compliance was far from the only area of concern, there were doubts across the board. Less than half of those questioned were confident in meeting increasing demands in one or more areas relating to general business growth (45%), business critical connectivity (46% average), or the use of cloud-based infrastructure (47%).

This uncertainty surrounding the evolving requirements of the business is leading to an increasing number of IT professionals anticipating the need to get smarter with the way they approach the issue. 56% of those questioned already see a need for more specialised/advanced solutions, with a further 34% saying this this would be required in future. Furthermore, 51% highlight a current need for new architectural approach, with 32% saying this will likely be necessary down the line. Many of those interviewed also believed that new ways to monitor and manage the network (60% now, 26% anticipating) would become increasingly important in order to maintain performance as demands increase.

“This research shows a discrepancy amongst mid-tier businesses whose existing IT infrastructure is already at capacity, yet is expected to accommodate a host of new demands without compromising security or performance,” said Dr. Wieland Alge, VP and GM EMEA, Barracuda Networks. “Many businesses know this is a problem, yet they lack the knowledge or the resources required to implement an IT network solution able to cope with new business technology and trends.”
“The effects of rapidly evolving business practices on existing infrastructure are clearly highlighted in the findings of this research,” said Tony Lock, IT Industry Analyst, Freeform Dynamics. “With almost everyone we spoke to having concerns, it is clear that a large proportion of mid-level businesses have significant work to do to improve their capabilities and prepare for the future.”