Server virtualization and mobile devices present greatest datacenter monitoring challenges

USA: One-third of respondents identified server virtualization as the top monitoring challenge within their datacenter, closely followed by managing mobile devices, according to a survey released by Network Instruments at Interop Las Vegas 2013.

Highlights of the on-site survey of 108 network engineers, IT directors, application developers, and IT executives attending Interop found the following:

Network Bandwidth Demands Continue to Grow: Two-thirds of the respondents expect bandwidth consumption to grow by more than 25 percent in the next 12 months, and 39 percent expect it to grow 26 to 50 percent during the next 24 months. More than one in five respondents expects bandwidth consumption to increase by 75 percent during the next two years.

Moving Beyond 10Gb: 56 percent of respondents will have implemented 10Gb technology within 12 months. Participants anticipate the move beyond 10Gb network capacity to occur over the next two years. Nearly 10 percent of respondents will move to 40Gb in the next 12 months, while an additional 20 percent will move to 40Gb and 100Gb in the next two years.

Monitoring Challenges for IT Initiatives: Of the latest IT initiatives, server virtualization and the introduction of mobile devices topped the list of greatest network monitoring challenges, according to the survey respondents, at 31 percent and 29 percent respectively. However, these were closely followed by cloud computing (25 percent), migration to 10Gb and 40Gb technology (19 percent), IPv6 (19 percent), and unified communications (16 percent).