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VoIP Adoption Moves into the Mainstream
The popularity of VoIP has steadily increased over the last few years. Our annual IT Spending, Staffing, and Technology Trends study indicates that VoIP adoption rates have risen at a 12% annualized rate from 2005-2007. This year, Computer Economics research indicates that, for the first time, the majority of businesses will have implemented some form of VoIP technology.
January, 2008
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New Initiatives Spending Is a Key Measure of Efficiency
Over the last few years, business and governmental organizations of all sizes have been giving priority to spending for new initiatives, as is typical in periods of economic growth. But inevitably those will priorities shift, and shift quickly, as the business cycle turns. In today's climate of slowing economic growth, IT managers need to be ready to defend the efficiency of their ongoing operations against pressure to make cutbacks while sustaining investment in high-priority strategic initiatives. The study is based on interviews with IT executives and a Computer Economics survey conducted in October and November 2007 on IT budgeting.
January, 2008
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Minimizing Data Center Job Failure Rates
The successful completion of batch and online processing is crucial to meeting service level objectives in any data center, yet a surprising percentage of data centers do not routinely collect metrics concerning job failures. This article presents statistics concerning the average rate of job failure in IBM mainframe (z/OS) data centers along with the typical rate of failure experienced by organizations that implement best practices. We also break down failure rates by type of failure and provide recommendations for attaining best-practice status. (3 pp., 3 figs.)
December, 2007
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Storage Virtualization Yields Positive ROI
(IRVINE, Calif.) Nearly 88% of companies that have adopted storage virtualization in some form achieved a positive or break-even return on investment, according to a Computer Economics study on early adopters of the technology.
December, 2007
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Few IT Organizations Make Users Pay
(IRVINE, Calif.) Despite the heated debate over chargeback practices in the earlier part of the decade, 42% of companies still do not charge back any portion of their IT budgets and less than a quarter engage in aggressive chargeback practices, according to a Computer Economics survey of IT managers.
December, 2007
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Applications Consolidation Rising Rapidly
According to Computer Economics, more than three-quarters of all organizations have engaged in applications consolidation, indicating that the trend by enterprises to standardize on fewer software vendors is rising. Computer Economics is an IT research firm that specializes in metrics for IT management.
December, 2007
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IT Budget Chargebacks: Making Users Pay
The key premise of chargeback strategies--that IT expenses should be allocated as closely as possible to the business activities that create the demand--seems like a rational approach to sound business management. If business-unit decision-makers perceive IT to be "free," they will be unable to account for the true cost of business investments and activities. This Research Byte is an executive summary of our full report and survey on current practices in the chargeback of IT expenses to users.
December, 2007
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Storage Virtualization: Benefits and Risks
Although implementation of storage virtualization is limited, organizations of all sizes are showing a great deal of interest in the technology. This Research Byte is an executive summary of our full report on the ROI and TCO of storage virtualization, based on the experiences of early adopters as reported in our most recent annual survey.
December, 2007
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Recharging the IT Budget Chargeback Debate
The heated debate over chargeback practices has become muffled over the last few years as IT spending recovered from the downturn in the early part of the decade. But when pressure mounts on CIOs once again to more firmly restrain IT budgets, arguments over who should own the costs--the business units or the central IT organization--is likely to re-emerge. This article assesses the current state of IT budget chargeback practices, based on a special survey conducted by Computer Economics of IT managers. It outlines which IT budget line items are typically charged back to business units and how much of the IT budget is usually recovered in such fashion. We conclude with recommendations for IT managers considering cost allocation strategies for the future. (4 pp., 3 figs.) [Executive Summary]
December, 2007
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Storage Virtualization: Early Adopters Achieving Benefits
Storage vendors have been promoting virtualization as the next big step towards improving the ability of data centers to maximize storage resources, gain flexibility, and lower the cost of managing increasing amounts of data. This report assesses the economics of storage virtualization, based on the experiences of early adopters as reported in our most recent annual survey. It provides an explanation of storage virtualization technology to gain insight into its potential benefits, and concludes with recommendations for successful implementation. In brief, we find that most adopters are experiencing positive ROI with relatively low risk, but that potential benefits are not yet being fully realized. (4 pp., 4 figs.)[Executive Summary]
December, 2007
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2008 IT Spending Outlook: Anemic Growth
Although IT operational budgets increased by a healthy 5% this year over 2006 levels, Computer Economics is now detecting a slight bias toward underspending relative to budgets this year. Furthermore, IT executives are now lowering their expectations for increased IT spending in 2008. These trends are most pronounced among large organizations. This article presents the results of our Q4 survey of IT executives and what they mean for the IT spending outlook in 2008. (3 pp., 6 figs.)
November, 2007
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Application Consolidation: Adoption Trends and Benefits
Although consolidation of multiple applications or multiple system instances into a single system can be a great undertaking, the resulting benefits can be huge. This study investigates the payoffs and risks associated with application consolidation, which is based on our survey of more than 200 IT organizations. We provide statistics on the adoption rate for application consolidation along with the percentage of organizations that experience positive or negative return on investment (ROI). Analysis of application consolidation cost experiences are also included along with the quantitative effect that application consolidation has on IT budgets. The report concludes with practical guidelines for application consolidation that mitigate the risks of the effort. (6 pp., 8 figs.)[Executive Summary]
November, 2007
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Application Consolidation Provides Major Payoff
Application proliferation is the bane of many IT organizations. Although the difficulties of application consolidation should not be underestimated, the benefits should be appreciated as well. In fact, the trend toward application consolidation is increasing, and the majority of organizations that begin such initiatives tend to increase their efforts. This Research Byte is a summary of our full report, Application Consolidation: Adoption Trends and Benefits, which investigates this and other trends and provides recommendations based on our findings.
November, 2007
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DBA Staffing Ratios: Executive Summary
Database administrators (DBAs) and support staff comprise a relatively small but vital part of most IT organizations. In addition, DBAs have maintained a surprisingly steady percentage of the total IT staff over the years. The composite numbers, however, mask some of the underlying sea-changes occurring as a result of all the forces impacting this aspect of the IT workforce. This Research Byte is an extract from our full report on DBA staffing ratios.
November, 2007
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Database Administration Staffing Ratios (2007)
In this report, we examine typical database administration (DBA) headcount by organization size as well as the DBA staff as a percentage of the total IT staff. We also analyze DBA headcount as a function of application developer headcount. Finally, to assess the impact of custom software development on DBA staffing, we examine these database staffing ratios in relation to the level of custom software development. (5 pp., 7 figs.)[Executive Summary]
November, 2007
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