F5 Networks, Inc., the global leader in Application Delivery Networking, today announced the
results of the F5 Networks 2011 Journey to ITaaS Study. This survey summarizes
enterprises' attitudes about and progress toward implementing IT-as-a-Service
(ITaaS)--a business model in which stakeholders select and self-provision IT
services on demand. With the static data center model of the past lacking
sufficient agility to support today's myriad user types, complex applications,
and increasing demands on IT, enterprises are showing support for the idea of
ITaaS as they move toward a dynamic data center model.
"ITaaS is a promising option for many enterprises, given the range of demands
placed on data centers, which traditionally aren't flexible enough to adapt to
the requirements of today's applications," said Karl Triebes, CTO and SVP of
Product Development at F5 Networks. "Users are increasingly demanding support
for a variety of applications with multidimensional needs. This requires
additional functionality and automation capabilities that are typically inherent
in dynamic data centers and associated with ITaaS."
Modern enterprises are successfully leveraging virtualization to consolidate
systems and reduce costs; however, they are also finding that virtualization
increases the complexity of managing IT resources. In addition, they must
deliver applications to market faster by provisioning computing resources more
quickly. With the ITaaS business model, IT services are abstracted, virtualized,
and available to business stakeholders on demand. Accordingly, a dynamic,
automated data center model is proving to be increasingly important for
enterprises' success.
"Traditionally, the data center is a siloed environment, but IT must now
reinvent the way data center elements are assembled to deliver applications,"
said Schalk Theron, CIO at SpringCM. "Users now typically want to obtain a
service without having to call and ask someone for it. ITaaS is doing just
that--providing a catalogue of services to users and allowing them to
self-provision applications. The time has come for IT to think in business terms
and move at the speed of business. This is done by automating and aligning
technology to match business demand."
The survey found that at least 67 percent of enterprises have implemented or
are in the process of implementing Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and that 15 percent of enterprises have
implemented or are in the process of implementing chargeback capabilities,
setting the stage for full-scale ITaaS across enterprises. In addition, nearly
75 percent of respondents believe that the shift to ITaaS will take place in the
next three to five years.
Other findings include:
- IT managers see the value of ITaaS: Three out of four IT managers say that
their organization's philosophy and needs align with an ITaaS framework.
- Data center automation has reached critical mass, paving the way for
ITaaS: Eighty-five percent of IT organizations surveyed have virtualized or are
in the process of virtualizing their servers. Thirteen percent are close to
being able to perform long distance live migrations of their environment, and 19
percent are close to a full self-service provisioning model.
- Enterprises believe ITaaS will be widely adopted: Eighty percent of IT
managers believe that ITaaS will become mainstream.