Consolidation is one of three top priorities for CIOs

Research shows varying drivers for simplifying IT across Europe

Some 70 per cent want to consolidate servers

Consolidation of IT systems is a top-three priority for three quarters of CIOs in Europe, according to recent research. Security and virtualisation are the other two major concerns.

The research, commissioned by network systems vendor Brocade, found that a desire to simplify management and enhance efficiency is driving consolidation.

The research among 600 IT leaders across the EMEA region also created a picture of conflicting aims. CIOs want scalability but reduced management complexity (61 per cent); seamless mobility and increased agility (38 per cent); and nearly half want emerging networking technologies to complement the investments they are making today, instead of forcing them to “rip and replace”, while reducing the total cost of ownership.

When asked what they plan to consolidate, 70 per cent of respondents stated their existing servers, 56 per cent said storage, 54 per cent databases, 49 per cent networks and 47 per cent applications.

Perceived business benefits include improved resource utilisation (39 per cent), lower overall complexity (36 per cent), process and operational standardisation (34 per cent) and cost reduction (31 per cent).

Consolidation is not a done deal: a third of European respondents said they face resistance from within their organisation while application diversity (for 49 per cent) and platform diversity (42 per cent) are also seen as major hurdles to overcome.

Regional differences in the research showed that in France 21 per cent of organisations are not even considering consolidation; 73 per cent of organisations in the UK stated that the biggest driver for consolidation is IT simplification, while in Germany the biggest driver was increased agility.

In the UK 46 per cent of organisations are looking to reduce overall operating costs by consolidating IT systems; in France the figure drops to 30 per cent.

More than half of respondents cited reduced productivity from slow legacy systems as having a significant effect on business success. Brocade says 40 per cent of IT departments are now spending 10 to 30 per cent of their time reacting to network downtime.