Data center automation, IT skills, IoT and digital transformation: Research round-up

Let's start with our our special feature on A Guide to Data Center Automation. Despite industry attention on the cloud, traditional, on-premises applications still dominate. A report from 451 Research/SkyTap shows that nearly one in five (19 percent) organisations have over three-quarters of their applications still running on traditional on-premises infrastructure, while over half (55 percent) put their 'legacy' application count at between 51 and 75 percent.

For more see: Data centers: The future is software-defined

The prevalent cloud deployment model in the 451 Research/SkyTap survey is private cloud (70 percent), followed by hosted private cloud (56 percent). Despite the hype surrounding public cloud providers, use of a single hyperscale public cloud is only cited by 48 percent of respondents, with multiple public cloud usage bringing up the rear at 19 percent.

For more see: Data centers: The future is software-defined

Cybersecurity skills and talent in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) will dominate IT hires in 2019, a new survey suggests. According to the 2019 State of IT Careers released by Spiceworks, one in three organizations across the US and Europe plan to hire new staff next year.

For more see: Cybersecurity, AI skills to dominate IT staff hires in 2019

The focus of many of these hires will be cybersecurity, but other skills in hot demand include AI proficiency, infrastructure hardware, end-user hardware, networking solutions, and software deployment.

For more see: Cybersecurity, AI skills to dominate IT staff hires in 2019

According to Cisco's annual Visual Networking Index, M2M connections will account for more than half of the world's 28.5 billion connected devices by 2022. By 2022, the connected home vertical will account for the bulk of total M2M connections, while connected cars will show the fastest growth, with a 28 percent CAGR.

For more see: IoT to drive growth in connected devices through 2022: Cisco

Meantime, Cisco says global IP traffic will increase three-fold from 2017 to 2022, from 122 exabytes a month to 396 exabytes a month. Middle East and Africa will show the highest growth rate at 41 percent. Global average Wi-Fi speeds in North America are expected to reach 83.8 Mbps by 2022, up from 37.1 Mbps in 2017.

For more see: IoT to drive growth in connected devices through 2022: Cisco

Digital transformation spending will approach the $2 trillion mark in 2022, good for a 16.7 percent compound annual growth rate, according to IDC. Four industries will account for nearly half of the $1.25 trillion spent on digital transformation. Across industries, digital transformation spending will revolve around use cases that are discretely funded. These use cases include robotic manufacturing, automation and intelligent infrastructure for energy.

For more see: Digital transformation spending to approach $2 trillion by 2022

If you want to keep your customers happy over the holidays, your customer service teams and social media teams need to be prepared for the increase in traffic. San Francisco-based AI powered customer service platform Helpshift has released its Holiday Performance Index. It analyses messages received through across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and shows just how critical automations and self-service options are for keeping support operations running smoothly.

For more see: New data reveals the secret to holiday retail success

The Arab Spring showed the potential of young people in the Middle East armed with technology. But the picture since then has been patchy, according to the the annual Arab Youth survey. For example, just over half of young Arabs say they shop and bank online, with varying degrees of frequency. But the research also shows there is huge untapped opportunity to expand services.

For more see: Middle East youth and tech: What's happened since the Arab Spring?

Perhaps the biggest change has been how young Arabs consume media. Young Arabs now get their news first on social media, not television. The survey reveals almost two thirds (63 percent) of young Arabs say they look first to Facebook and Twitter for news. Three years ago, that was just a quarter.

For more see: Middle East youth and tech: What's happened since the Arab Spring

Geoblocking, the practice of websites blocking users from certain countries from accessing their content, is not as widespread as most people believe, a recently published study has revealed. Scans of the Alexa Top 10,000 and Top 1 Million sites have unveiled low percentages of websites engaging in geoblocking. According to the researchers, the most blocked countries are Iran, Sudan, Syria, and Cuba.

For more see: Website geoblocking is not that widespread, study finds

Finally, Salesforce delivered strong results as it continues to benefit from customer-centric digital transformation projects and said it will deliver revenue of $15.9 billion to $16 billion in the fiscal year ahead. The company said its Sales Cloud continued to be the biggest revenue generator with third quarter revenue of $1.02 billion. Americas revenue was 71 percent of the total sales pie in the third quarter.

For more see: Salesforce delivers strong Q3, sees fiscal 2020 revenue of $16 billion