As high profile security breaches continue to make headlines, IT managers across Europe are feeling the pressure to keep their organisations protected.
The influx of devices in the workplace and the increased number of users accessing corporate networks has created new headaches for organisations to manage security. In the age of the cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT), organisations are expected to have the right foundations in place and adapt to future requirements. But are they really ready to meet security needs?
Colt recently commissioned research to find out how European organisations are supporting their businesses, and in particular, how ready their technology infrastructure is to support future ambitions. According to the report, data centre security (34 per cent) and general security (31 per cent) ranked amongst the top five areas which IT managers felt would severely impact infrastructure.
Overall, almost three in four businesses (72 per cent) have either a significant or moderate tech deficit – where their infrastructure is not ready to deliver the critical services needed to meet future business needs.
With the different type of security threats evolving so quickly, it’s difficult for IT and data centre managers to remain ahead of the curve. Enlisting the help of third parties could help them do just that, whilst focusing on their core competencies. Strategic partnerships could be a key movement for organisations in the future, as budgets get squeezed and technology more complex.
The true cost of security
With hacker threats continuing to grow, it’s important that the infrastructure in place is equipped to protect companies and continue to support future needs, whilst scaling accordingly. A second Colt report, Planning Anxiety, revealed that security is considered one of the most important areas of data centre planning (64 per cent) and was the risk that most respondents were concerned about (36 per cent).
However, with cost pressures ranked as the number one impact on infrastructure, how do organisations deploy security solutions which are scalable and cost effective? The true cost of security is not how much budget is spent on protection and firew
alls, but how much damage, either through monetary costs or reputation, your organisation will suffer if it becomes the victim of a security breach.
Creating a shift in mind-set about infrastructure
To better manage infrastructure, organisations are opting to simplify the services, applications, storage and network resources they have in place. Simplification (60 per cent) is seen as the most important route to ensuring that infrastructure supports the services needed to drive future business performance. This trend sees organisations move away from buying or owning technology and encouraging more flexible models such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
Those opting for these flexible and simplified models are choosing specialist partners, such as colocation providers, to support their infrastructure and streamline future planning. This route is proving to be one of the strongest – the Planning Anxiety report, found that 79 per cent of IT managers are confident that their colocation strategy will meet their business needs.
Security support from credible colocation providers is often the obvious choice because of the applied mandatory industry requirements and because security is regularly reviewed and updated to ensure complacency does not creep in. These updates and reviews are also necessary to meet the varying needs of different customers, which help to remove the data centre “headaches” of IT managers.
If organisations can partner with those that will help mitigate their business risks and ensure flexibility in their offerings, they should be well on their way to closing the tech deficit gap that resides in so many businesses today.
In the digital economy, customers expect quick responses to demands, which means an increasing pressure on businesses to respond in an agile way. Owning infrastructure that cannot quickly be used to support the new requirements, puts businesses at risk of security threats and could also prevent businesses from exploiting the benefits of the digital economy in the future.
John Hayday, director security and business resilience at Colt
