F5 Survey Says ITaaS Catching On

F5 Networks has been hot lately with its BIG-IP family of integrated application delivery services, so like a lot of companies that get on a roll, it decided to do a survey that combines self interest with questionable news value. The title of this survey sounds VMware-esque: The F5 Networks 2011 Journey to ITaaS Study. What it basically says is users think the static datacenter model is evolving into the dynamic datacenter because users like selecting and self-provisioning IT services on demand, and they dislike dealing internally with problems related to complex applications and myriad user types.

The good news, F5 says, is that modern enterprises are successfully using virtualization to consolidate systems and reduce costs. The not-so-good news is that virtualization is putting them back in the complex morass of managing IT services, while putting pressure on IT organizations to expedite the delivery of applications to market by provisioning compute resources more quickly.

Before we get to the results, it should be noted that this survey was conducted this past July by MarketTools, Inc., and included 538 responses from enterprise IT pros.

Now, some sample results, which are hardly revelatory:

According to F5, "The survey found that at least 67 percent of enterprises have implemented, or are in the process of implementing IaaS and 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 the enterprise. In addition, nearly 75 percent of respondents believe that the shift to ITaaS will take place in the next three to five years."

The study also notes that three out of four IT managers say their organization's philosophy and needs align with an ITaaS framework, and 80 percent of IT managers believe that ITaaS will become "mainstream."

Posted by Bruce Hoard on 10/05/2011 at 12:48 PM