ILM Consulting

CAMPBELL, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 02/08/10 -- As part of its Continuous Research Service (CRS) series of analyst notes and surveys on enterprise networking and data centers, Infonetics Research last week published Data Center Deployment Strategies: North American Enterprise Survey.

ANALYST NOTE

"The data center promises to be a major area of investment and change over the next two years, touching everything from security to servers to storage. For those who are expecting 'the cloud' to be a savior of the IT industry, our study is a bit of a reality check: while there is some interest in cloud-based services, particularly on the software side, the majority of respondents have no concrete plans for it. Virtualization is the more important trend and technology, as it is a critical tool for organizations to make their infrastructure more efficient and manageable," advises Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise voice and data at Infonetics Research.

SELECT DATA CENTER SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS

-- Security upgrades, both for IT security and physical security, was the
   #1 change named by respondent organizations when asked what major
   changes they planned for their data centers over the next two years
-- Among respondents planning to use cloud-based services for their data
   centers, the interest lies primarily in software as a service (SaaS),
   such as salesforce.com, and cloud-based software applications from
   Microsoft, Google, and Oracle
-- Outsourcing or leasing data center space is not used widely today, but
   shows the greatest growth as a model over the next two years
-- Data center networks are getting a boost in bandwidth to deal with
   rising traffic and device numbers: Respondent companies expect the
   number of 1G Ethernet switch ports to eclipse 100M by 2012

ABOUT THE SURVEY

For this survey, conducted in January 2010, Infonetics' asked data center purchase decision-makers at 134 North American companies with 100 or more employees that have a formal data center infrastructure in place, about their data center buying strategies and how it is utilized today, along with their plans over the next two years.

Survey respondents were asked to rate drivers for data center investments, technologies, applications, equipment and software, as well as their use of, plans for, and preferred features for data center technologies, including security, virtualization, storage, cloud-based services, servers, Ethernet switches, and more. The report includes responses to two open-ended questions about use and plans for cloud-based services and the top three major changes they plan to make to their data centers over the next two years.

MORE INFORMATION

To view the table of contents and questionnaire used for interviews, log in to Infonetics' online portal: http://www.infonetics.com/login. From the portal, go to RESEARCH, then ENTERPRISE NETWORKING.

SALES

-- Larry Howard, Vice President: larry@infonetics.com,
   +1 408-583-3335
-- Scott Coyne, Senior Account Director, Eastern North America,
   Europe, Middle East: scott@infonetics.com, +1 408-583-3395

RELATED RESEARCH

-- Data Center Network Equipment Market Share, Size, and Forecasts (published Mar. 8)

-- Storage Network Equipment Market Share, Size, and Forecasts (published Mar. 8)

-- Ethernet switch and enterprise router markets continue to rebound

-- Enterprise router market stabilizing in North America

Infonetics Research is an international market research and consulting firm serving the communications industry since 1990. A leader in defining and tracking emerging and established technologies in all world regions, Infonetics helps clients plan, strategize, and compete more effectively.

Follow Infonetics Research on Twitter: http://twitter.com/infonetics.

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