For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

REPORT: Strategic Benchmarks 2013: IT Infrastructure

IT Complexity And Growing Business Demands Orient Infrastructure Priorities Toward Increasing Hardware And Cost Efficiency

May 8, 2013Sophia I. Vargas, Richard Fichera, Dave Bartoletti, Henry Baltazar, Andre Kindness, Rachel A. Dines

This report provides IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals with strategic benchmarks to compare their IT infrastructure budgets, priorities, motivations, and technology adoption to their peers. The benchmarks in this report focus on key categories of IT infrastructure: servers, server operating systems, storage, data center networking, virtualization, and data center facilities. These benchmarks represent a subset of data collected in Forrester's Forrsights Hardware Survey, Q3 2012, fielded to 2,330 hardware decision-makers. Use these benchmarks as an important input to determine if you will maintain, adjust, or rethink your strategic infrastructure plans in 2013.

For CIO Professionals

REPORT: The Top Emerging Technologies To Watch 2018

July 11, 2018 Brian Hopkins, Christian Austin, Andre Kindness, James Staten, Brandon Purcell, Nate Fleming, Frank E. Gillett, Jeffrey S. Hammond, Martha Bennett, J. P. Gownder

To outpace the competition, CIOs must keep a constant finger on the pulse of technology change. Forrester has identified 12 emerging technologies with massive disruptive potential; their impact will be seen across a range of products, services, and solutions. This report helps CIOs zero in on the technologies most worthy of their focus, strategic planning, and investment.

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

REPORT: Predictions 2018: Cloud Computing Accelerates Enterprise Transformation Everywhere

New Private Cloud Options And Even More Public Cloud And SaaS Innovations Will Power Enterprise Transformation In 2018

November 7, 2017 Dave Bartoletti, Lauren E. Nelson, Liz Herbert, Paul Miller, Charlie Dai, Andras Cser, Andre Kindness

After a decade of powering digital transformation in small and medium-size businesses, cloud computing has quickly become a must-have enterprise technology. Cloud's impact has been global, yet fewer than half of all enterprises use a public cloud platform. In 2018, we'll cross the significant 50% adoption milestone, and cloud applications, platforms, and services will continue to radically change the way enterprises compete for customers. This report outlines the 10 key factors that will shape the cloud computing landscape in 2018 and advises infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders on how to respond.

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

REPORT: Five Tenets Define Virtual Network Infrastructure, A Bold New Business Network

A Digital Business Network Built With NFV, Fabrics, Service Chaining, SDN, Programmability, And Multitenant Tenets

October 20, 2016Andre Kindness

In 2009, Forrester developed a new business technology network framework called virtual network infrastructure (VNI). Technology has advanced enough to support it, but a confusing array of names and acronyms, including software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), and service chaining, has emerged. Infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals must understand why VNI is a core technology strategy to help win, serve, and retain customers. This report explains the vision and key concepts of the model and connects industry buzzwords with five fundamental tenets to fit the VNI vision. This is an update of a previously published report; Forrester reviews and updates it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy.

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

REPORT: Networking Predictions For 2013

Networking's Renaissance Breaks Down The Technology Silos And Introduces Teamwork

July 17, 2012Andre Kindness

As infrastructure & operations (I&O) leaders move aggressively to execute on their private cloud plans, they've run headlong into growing frictions between networking professionals and the rest of the data center team. Fundamentally, the networking organization can't handle key cloud strategy elements like virtual machine mobility and cloud bursting with today's rigid, manually controlled network. Thus, I&O professionals must accelerate network investment both inside and outside the data center. The business needs a network that interweaves local-area networks, wide-area networks, wireless, application acceleration, and management with application programming interfaces (APIs) and software development kits (SDKs). This report delivers eight key predictions designed to help I&O leaders set their networking strategy for the next five years.