An overwhelming majority of data center operators believe their information technology infrastructure is unsuitable for their organization’s digital business strategy, according to a new vendor-sponsored survey on IT optimization.

The survey, conducted by IDG Research and sponsored by Datalink Corp., an IT services provider that helps companies to modernize their data center infrastructure, reveals that fewer than one in 10 of more than 100 executives surveyed believe their data centers are optimized to meet their requirements. The survey describes data center optimization as “high availability, the ability to scale IT operations along with reliable and secure access to business applications from any device regardless of location.”

The study also highlighted a trend among organizations to embrace hybrid IT infrastructure as a way of keeping critical workloads in-house. While a growing number of organizations want to take advantage of the public cloud, more than 40 percent admitted to moving workloads back on-premises because of concerns around security and cost.

Thanks to the expanding range of options available for fine-tuning data centers, such as mix-and-match public and private cloud services, software-defined platforms and all-flash storage systems, “data centers of the future will likely be made up of multiple integrated on- and off-premises platforms working in concert,” the report said.

In the meantime, many executives remain uncertain in which direction to go. The biggest challenge cited by respondents was needing to balance daily operations with their attempts to optimize IT infrastructure. A little over half of executives admitted they were still struggling to evaluate the options around cloud services, flash storage and hyper-converged infrastructure, particularly with regard to cost containment and return on investment.

Still, the survey also revealed that a majority of executives believe that “the existence of technologies and service delivery options such as cloud computing, virtualization, flash storage, and hyper-convergence has made it easier for companies to optimize their datacenters.”

The survey is one of several to emerge in recent months that highlight concerns in the industry over IT infrastructure demands. Just this week, IT consulting firm Protiviti Inc. published the results of its 6th annual IT audit survey, which found that IT security and infrastructure management were listed as the top challenges for data center operators.

“It is no surprise to find security, technology infrastructure and emerging technologies atop the list of challenges that IT auditors see in their organizations,” said Gordon Braun, managing director at Protiviti.

Photo: phamdo0912 Flickr via Compfight cc