David West has served as our Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development since April 2011. Prior to his current role, he served as our vice president of marketing and business development from September 2005 to March 2011, and as our vice president of business development from August 2000 to September 2005.

Prior to joining our company, Mr. West served as a director of strategic alliances from April 1999 to July 2000 and vice president of storage solutions in July 2000 at Legato Systems, Inc., which was subsequently acquired by EMC Corporation.

Prior to joining Legato Systems, Mr. West served as vice president of sales at Intelliguard Software, Inc., which was also subsequently acquired by EMC Corporation, from 1990 to April 1999.

Mr. West obtained his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University.

2012: IT Pros Walking A Tightrope Between Resources and Data Growth

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

High wire acts can be nerve wracking. Being able to balance so well and get from one side to the other, while performing somersaults and other daring acrobatics, is a tremendous feat and the victory applause at the end, so well deserved. Perhaps that's why I think of IT storage pros a little bit as tightrope walkers, balancing the need to drive projects to fruition with the budget, operational and IT demands they face day to day.

Looking to 2012, its no less a tightrope walk for them. Where are you spending your storage dollars next year? That's one of the many questions we asked nearly 300 individuals responsible for IT budget allocations encompassing storage and data management in our annual IT Storage Spending Predictions Survey. The results are in and, not surprisingly, managing data growth remains the top budget priority heading into the New Year.

According to the survey results, IT organizations are prioritizing managing data growth (i.e., data reduction) first, followed by network and equipment, disaster recovery, applications/software, data backup and recovery and backup of virtual server environments.

The survey polled a cross-section of companies, representing a wide variety of industry sectors, including government, education, manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, engineering and retail. While they may be in different industries, they share many of the same concerns.

The good news is respondents predicted a slight increase in overall IT budgets. Thirty-two percent of the survey respondents revealed their IT budgets would increase in 2012, while 50 percent stated their budgets would remain unchanged in the coming year. The bad news is most organizations will have to manage more data without adding IT staffers. Of those surveyed, 54 percent reported no expected increases in IT headcount in 2012; 16 percent expected an increase and 29 percent remained undecided on increasing their staffing in 2012.

The survey also revealed some interesting stats on expected capacity growth, virtual server adoption and how much of overall IT budgets will be earmarked for data protection needs. You can find additional results of our survey in our latest infographic on the subject.

There is not much IT pros can do to stop data growth. Virtual servers, mobile devices and the use of social media are going to continue to drive the creation of new, massive amounts of data – in fact, it's all a bit of a circus! The question is not how you stop data growth; it's how do you manage and protect it all with limited personnel resources all while sticking to your IT budget? It requires a new strategy for information management, one that provides a seamless process from backup and recovery to archiving for data retention.

CommVault's Simpana software was designed as a single platform for exactly this reason. One platform to intelligently manage and protect enormous amounts of data and information across heterogeneous applications, hypervisors, operating systems and infrastructure from a single console.

Customers need to alleviate these concerns without dramatically increasing their budgets. It's an old cliché to say, "Do more with less," but clichés are rooted in truth. We get it. That's why we strive to offer help our customers navigate the tightrope by providing cost-effective, modern solutions that solve real-world IT challenges.

What are your biggest IT concerns for 2012? Drop me a line via email or on Twitter to share your thoughts. Or even your fondest memories of the circus!

Submit a Comment

Please note that your comments will be sent directly to the author of this blog, and will be published upon approval per CommVault's comment policy.

The content of this blog reflects the thoughts and opinions of the author, and does not represent the thoughts, opinions, plans or strategies of CommVault Systems, Inc. ("CommVault") and CommVault undertakes no obligation to update, correct or modify any statements made by the author of this blog. Any and all third party links provided by this blog are not affiliated with, nor endorsed by, CommVault.