Cloud services, mobility top network challenges

BANGALORE, INDIA: Whether it is the use of smartphones, laptops or tablets, a recent survey by CommScope shows that mobile devices are playing a larger part as game changers in today's businesses, as enterprise IT managers struggle to keep pace with mobility's dramatic effects on workplace productivity and requirements.

Meanwhile, cloud-based IT services and applications also have grabbed the attention of those responsible for enterprise networks, according to the CommScope study. While nearly three-fourths of respondents confirmed they already are deploying some cloud-based applications, the shift to the cloud is far from slowing.

The seventh edition of the CommScope Global Enterprise Survey found that enterprise mobility and cloud services beat out infrastructure intelligence, 40/100GbE and green power initiatives as the top challenges facing company networks around the world. More than 1,100 IT professionals from 63 nations participated in the tri-annual research.

The survey found a noticeable gap between usage of mobile devices within enterprise facilities and the capability of those buildings to enable wireless traffic. According to the survey, an average of 43 per cent of all phone calls originating within an enterprise facility involves a mobile phone, yet only 30 per cent of these businesses say their carrier-provided in-building signal coverage and capacity are sufficient to handle the mobile traffic. This had more than three-quarters of respondents admitting that employees had to roam around the office, or even go outside, to get an adequate signal for a call.

"It's clear from the survey that bring-your-own-device is a growing trend and places a heavy demand on organizational infrastructure, while weighing heavily on the minds of most network IT professionals," said Kevin St. Cyr, senior vice president, Enterprise Solutions at CommScope. "The pace of mobility adoption by consumers-and thus the workforce and company visitors-has outrun the infrastructure and practices in place within enterprise facilities to support it. This also factors heavily into the uptick in a majority of survey respondents confirming deployment of cloud-based applications."

Key findings from the CommScope Global Enterprise Survey include:

Enterprise mobility: Forty-four per cent of surveyed participants see the widespread use of mobile technology as a game-changer. About a third of respondents reported having a distributed antenna system (DAS) deployed on site to support the indoor wireless traffic, while another 36 per cent reported no capability to provide adequate indoor mobile coverage or capacity.

Cloud services: Forty-four per cent of surveyed respondents also pointed to cloud services as a top game-changer and expect that importance to grow. While 21 per cent currently rely on cloud technology to run more than half of their applications, 52 per cent believe that by 2017 more than half of their applications will reside off-site in the cloud.

40GbE and 100GbE: Nearly a third of respondents indicated that 40GbE and 100GbE would have a significant impact on their future operations, with a majority citing the emergence of laser-optimized multimode. There was also consensus among the respondents as to their installation strategies for future data centers. Sixty-one per cent of operators favored a pre-terminated data center solution as opposed to a field-terminated solution.

Infrastructure intelligence: Nearly one in three of surveyed participants mentioned the need for intelligent infrastructure as an IT infrastructure game-changer. The key driver, cited in 61 per cent of the surveys, is the increasing demand for greater productivity.

Green, reliable power: Energy usage is still near the top of many respondents' minds. One-fourth of respondents indicated that energy and green initiatives would be a game-changer over the next five years. On average, respondents are looking to reduce energy consumption by 18 per cent; their strategies involve server virtualization, consolidations and cloud computing.

"We are trying to capture what's important to IT managers, and the impact of trends in network planning and connectivity on the jobs they do," said St. Cyr. "This survey is part of our ongoing commitment to fully understand our customers' needs while getting a better perspective on how they view and manage their evolving enterprise networks and data centers."