A Data Catch-22 Is Slowing Your Digital Transformation

Data issues are the most pressing technical challenge for organizations seeking to execute digital transformations. According to research from Forrester, they are often the critical drivers for infrastructure decision-making.

While employee availability was the number one challenge, chosen by 27% of almost 1,400 technology decision-makers interviewed as part of Forrester's Business and Technology Services Survey, data issues were a close second at 25%.

The next barrier was the "non-tech skills" gap, followed by technology strategy and legacy technologies, cited by 15% of respondents.

The insights were presented at a recent Digital Realty webinar on 'AI & High Density Colocation" by Forrester analyst Tracy Woo.

“A lot of organizations have data, and they don't necessarily know how to manage it, and they don't have the infrastructure or the capabilities to handle it in a way that becomes really insightful," said Woo.

“Companies recognize this, but they still continue to invest in these data-heavy applications, so they are in a Catch-22 where they don't have the infrastructure to support it, but they need to continue to invest in solutions like IoT, machine learning and 5G which are huge and really important initiatives.

Catch 22

IoT was the most popular investment area, cited by 47% of respondents, with 45% citing AI/ML and 40% 5G. Unlike the question on challenges, respondents could choose more than one response.

This Catch-22 often resulted in a "conundrum" where organizations were forced to decide how best to support these applications through an outsourced service provider or a hosted public cloud.

Asked where they would increase spending on hardware and infrastructure, 70% nominated high-performance computing, 65% said they would raise their budgets for outsourced service providers, and 61% said hosted private cloud.

"Even if the data is there and they might have the right insight, they can't access it in a way which is really meaningful."

Another critical factor in these decisions, said Woo, was latency, and this was a "huge challenge" for organizations, and many struggled to find successful outcomes.

One of the significant challenges in data management was the inability to process big data and act on it at the required speed to enable operations.

“This is about the accessibility and availability of the data,” said Woo.

"Even if the data is there and they might have the right insight, they can't access it in a way which is really meaningful to the business at a time when they need it."

There may be governance issues around regulation or compliance, or there are often technology issues, such as the software for data management.

"It could also be that the infrastructure you have on-premises doesn't meet your needs, and you are not able to find something with a public cloud provider."

Another dilemma was around the proximity of the data with the computing function, which “need to be able to live in a place where they are physically close to each other.”

If they are not close, the real-time insights organizations seek to generate can be "rendered useless."

Given this imperative, many organizations chose on-premises solutions, although there were also potential benefits from using a multi-tenant data center.

“It really depends on what is your budget,” said Woo.

Data gravity

"Do you have the capability to continue to go through these massive refreshes on-premises, or do you want to, maybe you should be relying on another provider that can help and provide that compute physically closer without actually going to the public cloud."

Woo’s comments resonate with findings from the Digital Realty Data Gravity Index 2.0, which showed that the explosive growth in data creation over the next three years will occur primarily outside of the public cloud and significantly impact infrastructure decision-making.

“Residency, sovereignty and localization of data are driving how enterprises place, connect and operate infrastructure to support their customers and communities in this data-driven economy,” the Index says.

“We need not only to create a data-first environment that promotes integration, security and collaboration, but also be increasingly aware of the geography around digital hubs and population centers.”

The webinar heard that discussions about data invariably moved to discussions about capacity and, from there, to infrastructure choice and cloud configuration issues.

Woo said that while technology leaders could often become disheartened or confused by these issues, it was vital for them to understand they are not alone.

"This is an issue that every organization is [facing], so if you need that specific help, don't do it alone," she said. 

Image credit: iStockphoto/OSTILL