APAC firms struggle over data management, storage

Data storage and management is the biggest IT infrastructure challenge for businesses in the Asia-Pacific, excluding Japan, which also face budgetary constraints, notes a new Springboard Research report released Monday.

Amid growing storage needs, the most significant infrastructure challenge faced in the region revolves around the storing and management of data, according to the research firm. This is further exacerbated as organizations struggle to cope with "constrained IT budget", the report added.

"Given the key concerns, we expect increased investments in data archiving, storage virtualization, IT security, desktop virtualization and data deduplication among Asia-Pacific organizations over the next two to three years," Seepij Gupta, associate research manager of IT services at Springboard, said in the report.

Storage area network (SAN) is the most preferred storage infrastructure among companies in the region, where 60 percent of respondents--comprising enterprises with over 1,000 employees--had already invested in such technologies, said the research firm.

The Springboard report also predicted that growth in the storage market, over the next couple of years, will be boosted by the emergence of cloud-based hosting and backup services.

Server profile low, but high on client
Springboard noted that only 35 percent of respondents had over 25 servers in-house. Microsoft Windows was the most adopted server operating system in the region, followed by Linux.

According to the report, 58 percent of organizations in the region had more than 250 clients. Respondents in India and China had the highest number of clients at over 500.

Fred Giron, vice president of IT services, at Springboard Research, said this underscored desktop management as a major concern for organizations because of "the vast sprawl".

"This will drive strong growth opportunities for managed service providers and also open up more opportunities for thin clients," Giron noted.