ESG Research Finds Information Security Concerns are Paramount at Remote Offices

Business Wire, Feb 27, 2007

New Report Finds that Improving Information Security Measures Tops Organizations' IT Priority List for Remote Office/Branch Office Locations

Combination of Security Fears, Compliance Requirements, and Economic Pressures Continue to Drive the Centralization of IT Services Used by Remote Locations

MILFORD, Mass. -- The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), a leading information technology (IT) analyst firm focused on information storage, security, and management, today announced the availability of a new research report, Branch Office Optimization. This report examines the major IT priorities at and challenges currently faced by organizations' remote office/branch office (or "ROBO") locations. More importantly, the report analyzes how organizations plan to address those challenges both from a technology and process perspective.

The report is based on a survey of 626 IT professionals at North American public- and private-sector organizations, ranging in size from 100 to more than 20,000 employees. ESG interviewed respondents from both ROBO and headquarters locations to help better understand the perspectives and attitudes of the different constituents involved in making remote office/branch office IT decisions. Important questions addressed in this report include:

* What are organization's most important IT priorities for their remote office/branch office locations? For example, is ensuring regulatory compliance at remote sites more important than consolidating IT infrastructure?

* How are corporate applications and IT services currently accessed by remote locations? Are applications hosted on site or are they hosted at a centralized data center accessed over the WAN?

* For those applications that are hosted centrally and accessed by remote locations, what are the problems associated with delivering IT services to remote locations over the WAN?

* Have new technologies such as WAFS (Wide Area File Services) and WAN (Wide Area Network) Optimization been deployed to ensure adequate performance for remote applications and users?

* What is the current data protection process at remote offices? Are organizations using any remote backup technologies whereby data is backed up directly to centralized locations over the WAN, or do organizations back up locally?

Among the report's many findings:

* Security, compliance, and disaster recovery top the list of ROBO IT priorities. ESG asked survey respondents to rate the relative importance of 15 different IT initiatives at ROBO locations. Respondents attached the highest priority to "improving information security measures," followed by "ensuring compliance with government, industry, or corporate governance mandates," and "improving disaster recovery processes." Improving application performance and accessibility for ROBO users were next in line in terms of importance.

* IT service centralization helps address ROBO priorities, but organizations are challenged by performance problems and high bandwidth costs. End-users see IT service centralization as a way to address top ROBO priorities such as improving data protection, bolstering information security, and reducing costs. However, organizations continue to experience numerous challenges in their efforts to deliver IT services to remote locations, primarily poor application performance, slow file transfer speeds, and high WAN bandwidth costs. These challenges tend to affect all organizations regardless of size or IT budget.

* Security concerns and resource constraints at ROBO locations drives current and planned remote backup activity. Organizations that currently use or expect to implement remote backup technologies do so primarily because of a lack of qualified IT resources at ROBO locations, concerns over the security of backup data at those locations, and high capital and operational costs associated with the data protection process.

"This unique, far-reaching report clearly shows that IT professionals located in remote and branch offices are in agreement with their colleagues at corporate headquarters: Improving information security, regulatory compliance, and disaster recovery readiness - while ensuring improved application access and performance for ROBO users - are key IT challenges and concerns", said Brian Garrett, an analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group and co-author of the report. "With insights into the real issues that IT organizations face today; their future business and technology requirements; and the products and services being adopted in increasing numbers, this research provides actionable insight for any reader seeking to understand the market for WAN optimization, WAFS and remote data protection solutions."

A comprehensive analysis of the IT challenges, priorities, and plans associated with remote office/branch office locations, Branch Office Optimization, is 67 pages in length and includes 76 figures and tables. The report also includes insightful quotes taken directly from the transcripts of ESG's in-depth interviews with end-users.