The industry reflects, looks ahead

By Staff, ZDNet Asia
Friday, March 14, 2008 06:39 PM

Dennis Rose, vice president, Pacific, Citrix Systems

Dennis Rose,
Citrix Systems
The demands imposed on enterprises by [Echo Boomer] generation of workers, aged between 16 and 27, adds pressure to the IT department and will have a far reaching effect in changing the way companies deliver applications to employees.

Q: What do you remember as the biggest industry news for 2007?
Rose: Virtualization has become one of the most talked-about technologies in recent years, but it really made a big impact in 2007. More organizations realize virtualization simplifies IT management, enables cost savings for the backend servers, reduces space utilization in the data center and improves the flexibility in supporting disparate client devices.

The biggest challenge facing IT departments is...
... Meeting changing business requirements and end-user demands quick enough due to the current complex IT environment their organizations have invested, which do not allow flexibility.

Many businesses have over the years pieced together applications, network, hardware, security devices and databases using products from various companies to overcome various "pain points". This approach is what we term "incrementalism"--an approach that results in mounting costs and complexity, and sees IT departments spend almost 80 percent of their annual budget just to maintain the disparate systems.

As the forces of globalization take hold, user end-points and the networks in which they traverse will take place outside of the IT organization's jurisdiction. This complexity is compounded by the growing demands of the Echo Boomer generation, the first generation of technology-immersed employees characterized by the need for on-demand access to applications and services. As a result, the demands imposed on enterprises by this generation of workers, aged between 16 and 27, adds pressure to the IT department and will have a far reaching effect in changing the way companies deliver applications to employees.

The biggest mistake I see CIOs make is...
... The failure to put in place a strategy for application delivery in the same way they did distinct new strategies for distributed computing in the 1980s and networking in the 1990s.

Application delivery refers to the process of getting mission-critical business applications from their source in the corporate datacenter out to users in the fastest, most secure, most cost-effective way possible. With enterprises of all sizes running their business on applications today, addressing this issue from a strategic standpoint has never been more critical if CIOs want IT to enable business objectives rather than being an obstacle.

Name up to three security trends that IT heads should look out for in 2008.
The first is understanding virtualization's impact on security. How does virtualization target and address traditional security problems? What are the security breakthroughs that dynamic coupling introduces? How can virtualization, isolation and streaming technologies work in concert to deliver on the promise of security?

The second is defining the security model. Local vs. remote; or connected vs. disconnected? Companies today find the distinction of "local" and "remote" users blurring, what with ubiquitous high-speed networks and greater user mobility. Users are also confused by a model that considers physical location over work scenarios, and are struggling to make the right security choices. Rich, granular policy, combined with end-to-end tracking and enforcement are redefining secure access from mobility to outsourcing.

The third is security and the end-user experience. Instead of demanding that users read a complex policy and insist that they "do the right things" for security, progressive organizations are working to deliver a more tenable solution. Removing the burden of personal security choices enables end-users to "do the right things" and saves significant time over working with the discrete security needs of each unique application. There is a need for an autonomous system that automatically presents and enforces the right user scenarios, allowing users to have the functionality they need and for the business to have the control they need.

 Canon 

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