The latest report released by Oracle entitled Next
Generation Data Centre Index Cycle II has revealed that many businesses seem to
have been caught off guard by the boom in ‘Big Data.’ Oracle stated that the
findings also suggested data has become an issue for boardroom consideration,
while sustainability is back on the agenda.
A press statement from Oracle Corporation made available to ITRealms
Online shows that the report follows Cycle 1 (C1) of the Next Generation Data
Centre Index, made public in May 2011.
Oracle thus established that many businesses are lagging
behind in their use of innovative technology in data centres, making them less
able to meet industry demands and respond to change quickly.
“Many were also found to be lagging in terms of managing spiraling
energy costs,” part of the press statement endorsed by Claire Alexander read.
Further, Oracle indicated that the new research, that is
Cycle 2 (C2) showed there has been improvement in the general performance of
many organisations, as measured in three key areas, namely the achieving data
centre flexibility, sustainability and supportability.
Equally, the report indicated that taken as an overall
average across these three sub-indices, businesses scored 5.58 on a scale of 0
to 10 where 10 would be the most sophisticated data centre strategy possible,
assessed by analyst house Quocirca1, and compared to 5.22 in the first report.
Some other key index numbers include that the proportion of
respondents with in-house-only data centres is down from 60 per cent (C1) to 44
per cent (C2). While those using some external data centres have risen from 40
per cent (C1) to 56 per cent.
The report added that many more businesses now see a need
within two years to build new data facilities, up from 27 per cent in C1 to 38
per cent in C2.
Whereas, sustainability is back on the agenda, fewer
respondents reported they do not have sustainability plan in place in C2,
recording 6.39 per cent against 13.19 per cent, while the number of data centre
managers seeing a copy of the energy bill has risen from 43.16 per cent to
52.19 per cent in C2.
The vice president, Hardware Sales, Middle East and Africa
(EMEA), Oracle, Mr. Tom Pegrume, was quoted as saying that they are seeing
similar trends to EMEA across Africa.
“There is a visible acceleration in consolidation,
virtualisation and systems management. We are seeing increasing alignment
between IT and business with many companies taking advantage of the radically
improved price performance on new technology to develop innovative products and
services that were not possible two or three years ago,” he observed.
Also, the senior vice president, Systems, Oracle EMEA, Luigi
Freguia, said “Wrestling with Big Data is going to be the single biggest IT
challenge businesses face over the next two years. By the end of that period
they will either have got it right or they will be very seriously adrift of
their own business and the threats and opportunities posed by Big Data.”
He pointed out that encouragingly, this research suggested
businesses realise they have a need to catch up on data within their
organisation,
“Many are looking at a combination of short-term need and
longer term planning. They are looking to outsourced solutions in the
short-term while planning long-term to build something in-house,” he said.
Just as the unique challenge of big data represents the
coming together of many IT trends, the growth in connected applications,
devices, systems and individuals in both the consumer and business world
creating vast amounts of structured and unstructured data through everything
they do.
Freguia described mining and understanding of what data
holds as the key to business success and that process must begin in the data
centre.
“The findings of this report suggest businesses are becoming
aware of this and are rapidly trying to get on top of their short and long-term
data needs,” he said.
Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D
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