IT priorities 2017: A mix of forward-looking and traditional tech- Valutrics

Planning for 2017

Regardless of where IT professionals are currently devoting their time and efforts, most shops have a slate of new initiatives planned for 2017, mingling forward-looking technologies with the more practical chores. Thirty-five percent of survey respondents said automating IT processes was at the top of their IT priorities 2017 to-do lists, followed by the seemingly endless cycles of network upgrades (31%) and compliance efforts (31%). Still, those somewhat mundane efforts were followed by a couple of more buzzword-worthy challenges that may present more stimulating challenges: big data analytics (30%) and hybrid IT melding on-premises infrastructures with cloud services (27%).

The top four or five priorities appear to be getting fairly equal attention, but if we look at the data by company size more dramatic differences are revealed. For respondents at big companies (those with more than 10,000 employees), the lists of 2017 initiatives start with big data analytics and IT automation, both cited by 44% of respondents. Midsize companies — those with 1,000 to 10,000 employees — are also focused on IT automation, but are leaning equally toward compliance (both selected by 39% of respondents). Topping the list for companies with 1,000 or fewer employees, on the other hand, is upgrading their networks.

Given its growing presence in many companies large and small, we asked an IoT-specific question and received surprising results. The question was about users’ choices among available IoT platforms, and perhaps the most eye-opening result was the mere 11% who noted that they were not using any IoT platforms at this time. IoT spans such a broad swath of applications, technologies and processes that it appears to be approaching ubiquity in enterprise data centers.