Economic uncertainty appears to have little influence on the worldwide IT industry, which is a direct result of the continued reliance of new tools to power companies forward. The ever-expanding data centre and Internet-connected nature of the workplace are both fueling global IT budgets, which are projected to total $3.8 trillion in 2014. A recent Gartner report indicated that this level of spending will represent a 3.1 percent increase from last year when the market only grew a meager 0.4 percent.

The largest segment of IT spending in 2014 will be devoted to telecommunications, which will reach nearly $1.7 trillion. IT services will account for $963 billion, followed by devices such as mobile phones and tablets at nearly $700 billion, enterprise software at $320 billion and data centre systems at $143 billion, according to Gartner.

The research firm explained that data centre investment growth was reduced from 2.9 percent to 2.6 percent, due in large part because less focus on IT outsourcing among organizations.

“We are seeing CIOs increasingly reconsidering data centre build-out and instead planning faster-than-expected moves to cloud computing. Despite these small reductions, we continue to anticipate consistent four to five percent annual growth through 2017,” added Richard Gordon, managing vice president at Gartner.

Replacing antiquated equipment with cutting-edge tech
The modern IT landscape is pushing the traditional boundaries of the office environment as businesses know it. Firms that support cloud computing, Unified Communication and Collaboration (UCC) solutions and mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets can empower their employees, regardless of their physical location. Personnel can now complete tasks on the go or in the comfort of their home, rather than always being bogged down by an office setting.

Cisco in particular understands this new approach and recently launched its Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), which is the first data centre and cloud solution that integrates both physical and virtual networks. The vendor explained that businesses often lack a central infrastructure that supports departments in different locations, but ACI will unify the network, storage, security and applications.

“ACI achieves this by unifying physical and virtual networks and offering security, compliance and real-time visibility at the system, tenant and application levels at unprecedented scale,” Cisco explained.

Organizations that want a successful IT infrastructure likely cannot go at their solutions alone. A reputable vendor can take all of these moving parts and make a cohesive platform to support the workforce. Those firms interested in improving their data centres, adopting cloud computing, implementing mobile solutions and launching UCC services can find all of their needs under one roof.

FlexITy is a leading managed service provider that covers all of these IT-related areas, providing clients the necessary resources and expertise to make sure their IT investments are fulfilled. What’s more is that FlexITy is the only Canadian MSP that offers clients access to Cisco’s full suite of UCC solutions.




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