Infrastructure software top priority for users, says IDC

SINGAPORE--End-users of infrastructure management software are continuing to adopt the technology for greater efficiency and effectiveness, a new survey has found. According to the IDC study, over 63 percent of respondents view the software as an important investment purchase.

The research company surveyed 277 users such as IT administrators and network managers, in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, for the study which included systems management, network management and storage software as infrastructure management software.

Ullrich Loeffler, software market analyst at IDC New Zealand, noted that heterogeneous storage environments, resulting from departmental, branch or post-merger consolidation, present challenges to end-users and IDC expects the storage management software investments to be a "critical priority" for these companies moving forward.

Meanwhile, the survey also revealed that end-users rated availability, cost optimization, and need for security and compliance as the top drivers for infrastructure software investments.

In terms of challenges, budget constraint was listed as a top challenge by a third of respondents surveyed. According to IDC, companies were finding it hard to justify the amount of money required to improve their infrastructure management operations. This is compounded by the fact that there were too few business case studies, too few technical experts, and too little management support in these areas.

Ulrich said: "Virtualization products, despite its current low adoption rate, seem to be the perfect solution to address most of end-users' challenges while maintaining cost on infrastructure management."

He added that IDC expects the investment to move a few notches higher once vendors can elaborate the value propositions effectively in the marketplace.