Proliferating, outmoded applications and data explosion hamper enterprises in innovation, any quick move to cloud computing

A proliferation of on-premises applications, many of them outdated, and the ongoing data explosion are posing serious threats to businesses worldwide, according to a recent survey of companies in Europe and America by Capgemini.

The first annual Application Landscape report found that millions of applications are obsolete and no longer deliver full business value. The result, says Capgemini, is a need to rationalize and retire applications, freeing up valuable resources to drive innovation and future growth, rather than maintain outdated systems.

The sheer number of applications supported – up to 10,000 for global enterprises – combined with an estimated average data growth of five percent per month means applications management is on track to quickly become an issue of real significance. Moreover, as companies move toward the transfer of applications to the cloud, the need for systematic and well-managed application retirement will accelerate.

Outmoded applications

In in-depth interviews with CIOs and IT leaders in the US and Europe, Capgemini found that:

• Some 85 percent say their application portfolios are in need of rationalization
• Almost 60 percent of enterprise companies say they currently support "more" or "far more" applications than are necessary to run their business
  
• Only 4 percent say that every IT system they use is considered to be business critical
  
• Half agree that up to 50 percent of their application portfolio needs to be retired
  
• Another 61 percent say they keep all data beyond its expiration date "just in case"
  
• Also, 56 percent of large companies and enterprises say that half or more of their applications are custom-built, increasing the technical complexity of required platforms and technologies
  
• Only 13 percent say their application development and maintenance teams are aligned. And half (48 percent) say their teams are only in synch for 50 percent of the time or even less.

  Successful application management – achieved through a true lifecycle approach of 'build, deploy, maintain and retire' – can deliver tangible business benefits in tough economic times.

Ron Tolido, CTO at Capgemini for Application Services Continental Europe, said: “Our research reveals that key goals for CIOs are value creation, improving efficiencies and cutting costs. Despite the fact that data archiving and application retirement can result in significant cost savings, process efficiencies and increased agility, it still does not rank high enough on the agenda. This report shows that successful application management – achieved through a true lifecycle approach of 'build, deploy, maintain and retire' – can deliver tangible business benefits in tough economic times.”

In addition to acknowledging the growing importance of this issue, the report also reveals the numerous current barriers to effective application management including: the cost of retirement projects, the lack of immediate ROI, cultural resistance to change, regional differences, the lack of qualified developers to migrate retired application data, and most importantly that applications are not considered a key priority.

You may also be interested in:

• Data center transformation includes more than new systems, there's also secure data removal, recycling, server disposal
• Application transformation case study targets enterprise bottom line with eye-popping ROI
• How to automate application lifecycle management: Conclusions from new HP book on gaining improved business applications
• Seeking to master information explosion: enterprises gain better ways to discover and manage their information

HP updates Information Management Portfolio with holistic approach

Reducing risk. Increasing efficiency. Simplifying business information management. Those are the three goals of HP’s updated Information Management Portfolio -- and the updates are all based on consumer demands.

“Three trends are driving how information is managed,” says June Manley, worldwide product marketing director for HP Information Management. She noted those three trends as the information growth, a lack of ownership around information management, and diverse policies. The results of a March survey Coleman Parkes conducted for HP amplifies those trends. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

According to the survey, information management is at a breaking point for the enterprise:

• 68 percent of enterprises say the content explosion is adding greater complexity to an already complex world and causing significant storage issues and costs.
  
• 59 percent of companies say they are under pressure to cut costs on information-related processes and systems.
  
• 43 percent of enterprises leave it to IT to manage information, while 38 percent leave it to the CEO and board of directors.
  
• 70 percent of companies do not have a holistic approach to managing information.
  
• 73 percent of companies do not have a universal and strictly implemented formal information protection policy, and only 18 percent are planning to implement a policy.

Holistic information management

Updates to HP’s Information Management Portfolio work to address some of these pain points with a holistic approach. Essentially, HP is helping organizations break down information silos with a solution that crosses the information lifecycle, including capture, monitor, protect, retain, find, and implement.

“Rather than basing information management on people -- who are constantly changing -- or infrastructure -- which is increasingly complex and physically dispersed -- the most successful approach is managing the information itself,” Manley says.

You are ensuring the right information is saved and can be found when needed to meet both business and regulatory compliance needs.

“Enterprises need to manage the information throughout its life cycle based on its business value. When you do that, you can expect to increase business efficiency, flexibility and simplicity. You are ensuring the right information is saved and can be found when needed to meet both business and regulatory compliance needs.”

Here’s a brief look at HP’s Information Management portfolio:

• HP Information Management Services delivers an integrated solution for managing information in any phase of its life cycle. HP consulting services offer legal, IT, business and chief information security officers to help establish policies.

• HP Integrated Archive Platform scales to manage up to 1 petabyte of data, 300,000 users, and 20 million e-mail messages per day and supports VMware vSphere.
  
• HP TRIM Enterprise Records Management now offers multi-jurisdictional retention and a new bulk data loading capability. Localizing policies eliminates administrative overhead, reduces costs and simplifies compliance.
  
• HP Database Archiving is now integrated with HP TRIM.
  
• HP Data Protector software now provides Granular Recovery Extension for VMware vSphere, as well as snapshot support for 3PAR and non-HP arrays, at up to 70 percent lower total cost of ownership (TCO). HP Data Protector also adds down-to-the-second snapshot recovery to HP StorageWorks P4000.
  
• HP Data Protector Reporter improves insight into backup operations with enterprise-level, multisite global analysis and reporting. It also offers centralized, automated backup reporting.
  
• HP Storage Essentials software decreases costs for managing physical and virtual enterprise information infrastructure. HP Storage Essentials Backup Manager plug-in for HP Data Protector helps organizations monitor the entire backup process.

HP’s future information management vision

The next phase of HP’s information management vision is to break through dataset silos. Currently, there is information in a records management dataset, information in a backup dataset, and information in an archived dataset. HP is working to help enterprises break away from those dataset silos.

“Our vision is to make it possible to have a single policy to manage, whether it’s in a backup archive or in a records management dataset. You have a single copy that is stored. You have a single compliance retention policy,” Manley says.

“The future vision is a single viewpoint of all information and the ability to find that information. All of the lines disappear with this strategy to leave a single platform, a single viewpoint and a single policy. That’s how information management is going to look in the future.”

BriefingsDirect contributor Jennifer LeClaire provided editorial assistance and research on this post. She can be reached at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jleclaire and http://www.jenniferleclaire.com.

You may also be interested in:

• New HP Premier Services closes gap between single point of accountability and software-to-cloud sprawl
• HP's new ALM 11 helps guide through shifting landscape of modern application development and service requirements
• HP offers framework for one-stop data center transformation