The Great Lakes. Five Guys Burgers. The Jackson Five. These are just a few of the memorable quintets that come to mind when considering famous fives. A MeriTalk survey underwritten by Brocade, however, looks at the ‘big five of Federal IT’ in a less than shining way.
Government IT decision makers were asked to provide thoughts and insight on the network changes necessitated by the Big Five – big data, data center consolidation, mobility, security, and cloud computing – as deploying each component provides unique challenges and the five together could ‘bring networks to their knees’.
The ‘Net of Federal Networks’ study examines the impact of each initiative on network complexity and capacity, rates agencies’ current state of readiness, and addresses opportunities to deliver synergies across the major initiatives.
Of the 200 government IT decision makers surveyed, 78 percent will have deployed big data efforts by next year. But big data is among the initiatives expected to have the most significant effect on agency network complexity and capacity requirements. That means an IT network will only become more difficult to maintain and grow.
Addressing network capacity remains a critical consideration today while security and speed also represent key areas of focus for success, according to the survey. In fact, network managers expect to transform almost half of their agency’s infrastructure by 2015.
Learn more about the steps agencies are taking to ensure big data and the remaining ‘fab four’ can work in concert enabling agencies to nurture and sustain the highest level of network operations. And please share your successes in the comment section below.
