Survey Says: Data Center Choices Are Confusing, Even for the CIO

The results are in from InformationWeek’s 2013 State of the Data Center Survey.

Editor Kurt Marko provided his analysis of the results:

“Our take is that [CIOs] have a bad case of the paradox of choice: Faced with myriad alternatives — private data centers, leased wholesale space, collocated facilities, managed infrastructure services, virtual private clouds, public IaaS, PaaS, SaaS — they get overwhelmed and become paralyzed.”

Marko goes on to advise companies to find clarity by asking, “What’s the optimal way to deliver this particular application or IT service?”

There are a lot of data center options out there – and with so much information available, it’s understandable that CIOs and managers can become overwhelmed with choice. We understand this confusion, but we believe that asking about how IT can be “implemented” is still the wrong process.

You see, beyond simply “doing IT,” your IT vendor should be more than just a service provider. They’re your strategic partner. Every feature of your data center or technology network should serve to help your business grow and keep it on the path to success. Anything less is insufficient, anything more is waste.

If you start your data center search with these objectives in mind, it will quickly become clear which companies are partners for growth – and which are just performing a service. A vendor who sees themselves as your business ally will offer solutions that serve your goals, and you’ll experience business-wide improvements beyond simple data center storage.

So when it comes to data center shopping, if you seek out business IT partners – rather than providers – you’ll have a much better result and take out a lot of the confusion, even for the CIO.