forrester ci thought leadership paper
Post on 05-Apr-2018
216 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
1/16
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
2/16Page 1
Executive Summary ...................................... ........................................ ........................................ ........................................ ...................................... . 2What Are The Challenges Driving Enterprises To Infrastructure Convergence? ....................................................................... 3 I&O Perception Of Converged Infrastructure Maps Well To Vendor Offerings ........................................................................... 5 Benefits Of Converged Infrastructures .............................................................................................................................................................. 6Actual Plans For CI Implementation Are Robust ......................................................................................................................................... 8 Perceived Barriers Versus Actual Experience With Converged Infrastructure ........................................................................ 10Key Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 12Key Recommendations ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 12Appendix A: Methodology ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 13Appendix B: Respondent Demographics ....................................................................................................................................................... 13
2011, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available
resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester , Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView,
TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective
companies. For additional information, go to www.forrester.com. [1-IVP5TP]
http://www.forrester.com/consulting -
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
3/16Page 2
To understand infrastructure and operations (I&O) perceptions of converged infrastructure (CI), HP and Intel
commisioned Forrester Consulting to survey 200 I&O decision-makers from six different countries (see
Appendix B for further demographic information). These decision-makers, from organizations with more than
1,000 employees, were asked about their expectations of benefits and barriers to implementation of CI.
Additionally, for the portion of the respondents who had actually implemented CI, Forrester gathered
information on their actual experiences.
Forrester defines CI as a pooled and virtualized combination of servers, edge networking, and storage, with
built-in virtualization abstractions for the physical layer of infrastructure (not to be confused with hypervisor-
type virtual machines) and integrated management. CI implies the ability to pool resources, streamline
management, and in the end, the ability to more rapidly and flexibly provision infrastructure and services. While
there is considerable variation in the actual vendor implementations of CI, all products embody some or all of
the above definition. CI has proven to offer significant advantages in manageability, energy efficiency, and
density, all of which contribute to opex savings improvements over conventional infrastructure, and Forresterbelieves that CI should be considered for any major infrastructure refresh or net new investment.
From a vendor perspective, while CI solutions are still a minority of shipments, they represent the fastest-
growing segment of enterprise infrastructure, and Forrester expects this trend to continue.
Forresters study yielded the following key findings:
The background pressures on I&O have remained constant and intense,
with no perceived change in demands on IT from earlier studies. Both budget pressures (55%) and
difficulty of provisioning infrastructure as well as applications and services (51%) were cited by more
than half of the respondents.
Potential consumers of CI define
the expected functions of CI in essentially the same fashion as Forrester and most vendors, leading us to
believe that the benefits are understood and communicated correctly by the wider vendor community. Of
particular significance was the strong perception (85%) that CI involved virtualized and pooled server,
network, and storage resources.
I&O executives are focused on hard
benefits such as cost reduction (89%) and business responsiveness. Soft benefits such as green IT are
lower in priority (40%).
Respondents weigh overall
functionality (62%), ease of integration, and standardization ahead of lowest cost and best-of-breed
components (27%).
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
4/16Page 3
Respondents are concerned about the
complexity of integration and the potential for vendor overstatement of benefits.
While recommenders are distributed throughout the
organization, purchasing authority is highly concentrated (70%) at the CIO level.
As a check on the general outlook of the respondents, Forrester requested that they identify the pressures and
challenges they saw impacting their organizations. Note that the pressures are dominated by very pragmatic
concerns about revenue, growth, and competitive positioning (see Figure 1). This pragmatic theme is reflected
throughout the survey, with respondents continually in favor of hard business benefits instead of softer and
more indirect benefits from proposed technology investments.
These pressures also track well against other Forrester survey data, which consistently shows that IT
organizations are challenged by budgetary pressures and the escalating complexity of their operations, driven
by increased business demand for new systems and continued escalation of transaction volumes.
What IT challenges are driving your organization to consider or invest in a converged infrastructure?
4%
29%
40%
44%
46%
51%
55%
Other (please specify)
Need to free up budget for innovation
Lack of agility
Cant keep up with the business and allthe IT requests
IT sprawl
Provisioning of infrastructure andapplications takes too long
Budget constraints/cuts
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
5/16Page 4
Despite recovering from the lows of the 2007 to 2009 recession, IT organizations are still under immense
budgetary pressures. Combined with the continued dominance of maintenance and capacity expansion at the
expense of investment in new initiatives, as shown in Figure 2, IT organizations are primed for any solutions
that can lower their opex and allow them to divert resources to new initiatives that add business value.
Our survey respondents identified the difficulty of provisioning new capacity as the second most mentioned
challenge, mapping perfectly to the responses in Figure 2, indicating that capacity expansion is the second
largest resource sink for their organizations. By simplifying provisioning, CI offers relief from this pressure.
The sheer complexity (sprawl) of the IT environments in most companies is a significant challenge, and
through its integration of normally disparate elements of network, server, and storage management, CI offerspotential for some degree of simplification of the environment.
In 2011, approximately what percentage of your organizations combined IT operating and capitalbudget will go to:
33%
44%
23%
2011 new IT initiativesand projects
2011 ongoing operationsand maintenance
2011 expansion of capacity to supportbusiness growth (e.g., new PCs for added
employees, added storage capacity to
handle increased data to be stored)
Mean
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
6/16Page 5
In general, perceptions of CI map well to existing technology offerings from vendors, leading us to believe that
the potential users have an appropriate set of expectations and that vendor offerings are well positioned.
There are, however, some complexities in interpreting these responses. Note specifically that while there is
general agreement that CI consists of pools of virtualized infrastructure, substantial minorities of respondents
place differing values on automation, service catalogs, and the requirements for integrated applications as part
of the CI stack.
These last three functions are likely to represent very significant differences in requirements for CI solutions
and will likely also represent significant departures among vendors as they address various mixes of user
requirements in their products. The implications for both potential consumers and vendors are clear:
Consumers of solutions must understand their requirements clearly, as vendor offerings will continue to
offer different combinations of these desired functions.
Which of the following elements do you feel are required for a converged infrastructure?
36%
38%
46%
56%
66%
67%
76%
85%
Prepackaged and integrated applications andsolutions
Prepackaged and integrated hypervisor andhypervisor management
A shared services catalog
Automated provisioning of infrastructure
Standards-based, modular components that can actas building blocks to convergence
A shared services environment across
technologies, management, processes, and people
Integrated management console, i .e., integratedserver, storage, networking, and management
systems
Virtualization and pooled management ofserver, storage, and network resources
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
7/16Page 6
Vendors must place their bets on the desired mix of functions and clearly communicate capabilities and
differences.
For reference, Forrester defines CI as a pooled and virtualized stack of server, network, and storage integrated
with common management that allows operations on these elements to be conducted without impinging on the
external data center environment. Additional elements of automation and service/application integration may
also be present.
Reduced to its essentials, the benefits that users expect from a CI answer the ongoing reality of contemporary IT
as shown in Figure 5 that most of the budget still goes toward keeping the lights on as opposed to new
business initiatives. In our sample, approximately 70% of the IT money goes to other than new business
innovation.
From interviews with companies that have implemented CI solutions, Forrester believes that CI delivers
benefits that address these pressures, among them:
By virtualizing these user IDs (UIDs) so they are isolated from the external
network environment, and by integrating the provisioning of network definitions, storage mapping and
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
8/16Page 7
other server administrative tasks into a single console, CI solutions allow a single point of provisioning
without the necessity of multiple interactions among server, network, and storage groups. The ability to
predefine pools of these IDs further streamlines operations.
By centralizing management of servers, storage, and networking, these solutions
streamline the day-to-day management of the infrastructure.
CI solutions are almost universally implemented upon a physical foundation
of blade servers, which provide significant simplification of the physical infrastructure, reducing cable
connections to the enterprise environment by up to 90% and simplifying management of the physical
servers.
In addition to reducing costs, CI solutions allow faster response to business requests and
also form the foundation technology upon which enterprises can build cloud-like environments.
In short, respondents clearly perceived CI as a solution that can deliver incremental improvements to their
current situation.
Which benefits have you realized (or do you expect to realize) through investment in your
converged infrastructure?
37%
40%
40%
41%
46%
47%
50%
56%
62%
64%
69%
69%
Compliance, legal, and regulatory
Improved labor costs
Improved power and cooling efficiency
Lower total cost of infrastructure ownership
Improved time to provision systems
Increased automation
Cloud-ready infrastructure
Improved disaster recovery and business continuity
Improved flexibility and IT responsiveness to businessrequirements
Improved IT infrastructure manageability
Centralization of IT resources
Create a more efficient, shared IT infrastructure
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
9/16Page 8
Server virtualization, the necessary precursor to CI, is ubiquitous across most of the industry, with the
overwhelming majority of enterprises indicating that they are in some phase of implementing and/or expanding
a virtualization program and users are beginning to take advantage of storage and network virtualization
capabilities as well. Against this background, the survey respondents show a very healthy set of responses to
questions about the state of their implementations and plans.
Other Forrester research confirms this trend toward implementation. It also highlights additional organization
considerations, most notably, that successful organizations are ones that are willing to change some of their
internal processes to get maximum benefits from their CI investments. The groups that are most affected by the
implementation of CI are the server, storage, and networking administration groups, which must now redefine
their relationships and responsibilities to allow a single set of administrators to assign MAC addresses, WWN
mappings, etc., to servers. The major change in process is often the joint specification of pooled ranges of UIDs
and then the delegation of the actual assignment responsibility in concept, a reasonable accommodation, but
one that in some cases was accompanied by significant organizational friction.
Another affected role is first-line support, which now has to understand the relationship between the
centralized management capabilities and the specialized domain expertise of the server, storage, and network
groups, and may need additional training in the CI solution. Security groups are often involved in the CI selection
process and will want to weigh in on any changes to security policies.
What are your firms plans to implement a converged infrastructure?
CI implemented,not expanding
8%
Expanding/upgrading CI
implementation
19%
Planning toimplement CI in
the next 12
months28%
Planning toimplement CI ina year or more
28%
Interested in CIbut no plans
14%
Not interested inCI3%
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
10/16Page 9
Currently, actual CI implementation is happening in more than a quarter of the organizations surveyed (27%) as
shown in Figure 6, and more than 50% of the remaining respondents are planning on implementation, with
more than half of this group planning on implementing within the next 12 months. Only a tiny percentage of the
respondents indicate that they are not interested in CI. Overall, this pattern adds up to a strong endorsement of
the CI concept and is positive for the overall health of this segment. Forrester believes that CI capabilities will
become increasingly important for many enterprises and that failure to adopt them can impede
competitiveness.
Having established that CI momentum is strong, the next major question is buying criteria who is buying
these CI solutions, and what are the criteria?
On the subject of who makes the purchasing decision, the answer is very strongly weighted toward the CIO, with
strong participation by multiple influencers.
In regard to selection of solutions, the weighting of criteria by survey participants shows an interesting streak of
pragmatism, along with the sensitivity to economics that seems to permeate other areas of the survey.
7%
2%
1%
4%
16%
70%
1%
4%
25%
34%
13%
64%
66%
73%
72%
28%
Don't know
Other (please specify)
Equally shared between corporate IT and thebusiness unit
Business unit (including technical staff within thebusiness unit)
Corporate IT, other (please specify)
Corporate IT, primarily within networking
Corporate IT, primarily within storage architecture
Corporate IT, primarily within server architecture
Corporate IT, primarily within enterprise architecture
CIO
Influencers Decision-maker
Which group is or will be the primary decision-maker in selecting a converged infrastructure? (Select one)What groups are involved in influencing that decision? (Select all that apply)
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
11/16Page 10
Respondents gave high weights to integration, manageability, and cost, with surprisingly low weights to best-of-
breed components and industry peer references. We hypothesize that the latter reflects the sophistication of the
survey respondents and their realization that CI represents a horizontal capability, and that peer industry
references are not as critical as they would be if it was a line-of-business solution such as a financial application.
While the data indicates a very strong demand for CI and strong intentions to purchase, barriers remain for
vendors to bring solutions to market and successfully market them to I&O groups. Some of these barriers are
real, and others are perception issues, but suppliers must take these latter concerns seriously, as they represent
significant barriers to adoption.
How important is each of the following criteria to your organization when selecting/assessing a converged
infrastructure solution?
25%
26%
27%
33%
30%
48%
51%
62%
53%
62%
36%
37%
40%
36%
41%
38%
37%
26%
37%
31%
30%
23%
23%
23%
22%
10%
11%
9%
7%
6%
7%
7%
8%
6%
6%
2%
1%
2%
3%
1%
References in my industry
Software usage/consumption model (pay per use)
Best-of-breed components
Speed of implementation
Technology vendor/manufacturer brand/reputation
Availability of service and support
Integrated management of overall system
Ability to integrate with your firm's other systems
Overall system cost (including software l icenses, hardwarecosts, and implementation costs)
Overall functionality
Very important: 5 4 3 2 Not important at al l: 1
1%
1%
2%
4%
1%
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
12/16Page 11
The experience of those who have actually implemented CI solutions tracks well with the concerns of those who
have not, with complex integration being, in Forresters opinion, a good proxy for the a priori concerns about the
complexity of integration. On the plus side of the ledger, failure to deliver anticipated benefits was a low-order
outcome in actual implementations. The large delta between perception and reality leads us to believe that
familiarity will reduce the perception of risk as CI solutions become increasingly mainstream.
Why isnt your organization considering a converged infrastructure?
9%
16%
19%
22%
25%
31%
41%
56%
Other (please specify)
Perceived risk
Don't believe the benefits wil l be delivered
Vendor lock-in
Moving directly to cloud computing
Immaturity
Not convinced of the benefits
High cost of implementation
What have been some of the challenges realized in the rollout of your converged infrastructure?
3%
24%
31%
31%
40%
50%
66%
67%
Other (please specify)
Unrealized benefits
Noncompliance
Internal resistance to change
Infrastructure disruption through rollout
High cost of implementation
Time and resource investment
Complex integration with existing infrastructure
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
13/16Page 12
Responses from users who have implemented CI solutions indicate that, by and
large, the promised benefits were delivered, validating the basic CI premise.
While a sufficient number of users have implemented CI projects, an even larger
number have not implemented CI but plan to do so in the future. This group represents a source of
potential revenue for vendors and assures I&O groups that they are not investing in a niche technology.
I&O groups that do not enable the new capabilities offered by making appropriate
process changes run the risk of impairing the benefits of their CI solutions.
With its potential to reduce
operating costs and streamline internal processes, CI can be a tool to begin to shift resources toward
innovation from ongoing operations and accelerate IT responsiveness to business requirements.
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
14/16Page 13
In this study, Forrester Consulting conducted an online survey of 200 organizations in the US, the UK, China,
France, Germany, and Japan to evaluate current trends, practices, and future investments in converged
infrastructures. Survey participants included heads of IT, direct reports to the head of IT (e.g., VP/directors),
and managers of IT teams. All respondents were decision-makers or significant influencers in the purchasing of
servers and IT services. Questions provided to the participants asked about the motivations for investment in
converged infrastructures, current barriers to investment, implementation challenges, and the benefits realized
from investment. The study began in and was completed in October 2011.
In which country is your organization headquartered?
China14%
France10%
Germany14%
Japan6%United Kingdom
14%
United States42%
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
15/16Page 14
12%
8%
12%
27%
41%
35,000 or more employees
25,000 to 34,999 employees
15,000 to 24,999 employees
5,000 to 14,999 employees
1,000 to 4,999 employees
Using your best estimate, how many employees work for your firm/organization worldwide?
Which of the following best describes the industry to which your company belongs?
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
3%
4%
4%
4%
4%
4%
4%
4%
5%
6%
6%
7%
12%
19%
Other (please specify)
Chemicals and metals
Consumer product manufacturing
Electronics
Life sciences
Travel and hospitality
Energy, utilities, and waste management
Construction
Education
Insurance
Retail
Technology (not listed above)
Telecommunications services
Transportation and logistics
Healthcare
Business or consumer services
Hardware/software products and services
Government
Banking and financial services
Manufacturing and materials
-
7/31/2019 Forrester CI Thought Leadership Paper
16/16
In general, how involved are you in the following stages of technology purchasing (e.g., IT
hardware, software, services)? (Select all that apply)
57%
59%
64%
68%
70%
70%
43%
41%
36%
32%
30%
30%
Managing RFPs
Setting or managing IT budgets
Setting IT priorities
Authorizing IT purchases
Defining IT requirements
Choosing/recommending IT vendors
I am often the final decision-maker I provide significant input to the final decision-maker
top related