Virtualization emerges as key driver of network investments

DUBAI, UAE: 'Data center availability', driven by enterprise mobility and virtualization trends, appears to be the leading IT concern for global businesses. This is one of the key findings of Brocade's annual 'Channel Survey 2013 Report' which aims to uncover the main trends, pain points and opportunities for organizations that deliver the IT solutions that drive the networks of some of the world's largest companies.

The survey was responded to by over 350 of the vendor's global channel players and includes inputs from a large number of resellers and systems integrators from the Middle East. Of these, 60 percent stated that end users view fabric technologies as the future of networks.

And while organizations understand the capabilities and benefits of fabric based networking, investment into new technologies falls short with a quarter of enterprises not making any significant upgrades to their data center networks in the last three years.

Khaled Kamel, territory channel manager, MENA at Brocade Communications said, "Recent research points to the fact that enterprises in the Middle East only upgrade their networks when there is a breakdown or they want to introduce a new technology that their current network cannot support. This is a reactive approach and this mindset needs to change."

Research firm Gartner in a report found that up to 65 percent of IT budgets are currently being allocated to simply 'keeping the network running'. This investment, though significant, yields no commercial advantage and with 61 percent of Brocade's respondents claiming that their customer networks are ‘not fit for purpose', the ability of these organizations to rapidly and flexibly deploy advanced data center networking solutions looks to be deeply hampered.

These shortcomings in networking investments may be the result of financial constraints. 62 percent of the channel identified tight budgets as having a 'significant impact' on customers' ability to invest in technology. For vendors, this could be an opportunity to drive business by extending financial support to their partners- a measure that 63 percent of respondents believe would become 'vital' or 'more important' over the next couple years.

This support could prove to be the impetus for a new wave of IT spending allowing customers to address the survey's top five drivers of network investments- the desire to adopt virtualization (41 percent); demand for faster access to data and applications (41 percent); demand for greater bandwidth (32 percent); the need to support increasing data volumes (25 percent); and the need to support mobility (24 percent).

Cloud computing is a popular trend in the Middle East. Gartner estimated a 20.2 percent growth in regional spending on cloud services through 2016, a figure that even exceeds the global average of 17.7 percent. Interestingly, while it has been often implied that lower costs would be a major factor,

Brocade's survey has found that only 10 percent of the channel see cost as a key driver. Instead increased flexibility to scale up or down with requirements and adopt or drop services as required were cited as the main reasons for cloud adoption.

Looking forward, the survey also helps IT organizations in the Middle East identify networking trends that will drive business growth. Of these, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) emerged as areas of interest for future data center network deployments.

SDN provides a framework for automation that can significantly improve the management and utilization of virtual devices in the network. The benefits of SDN are recognized by the channel respondents, with over a quarter saying SDN will be a "very significant" solution for the channel by 2020.

However, adoption will be closely linked with vendors' ability to offer standards based solutions as was noted by a third of respondents. Kamel however feels that the industry is making progress towards establishing these standards.

He said, "Today, organizations such as the Open Networking Foundation and Open Daylight have brought together vendors to create standards such as OpenFlow and other protocols. This will give businesses the confidence in the interoperability of SDN solutions while also protecting them against costly lock-in."