Lack of Testing Putting IT Infrastructures at Risk

SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 23, 2017) - Research conducted by the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) and co-sponsored by Virtual Instruments, the leader in application-centric infrastructure performance management, and multiple other technology leaders, has found that IT teams are putting their IT infrastructures -- and businesses -- at risk by failing to profile application workloads and test data storage systems before purchase and deployment.

Understanding and assessing application workload profiles before acquiring storage solutions provides critical insight into what's truly needed by application end-users. Without profiling production applications and analyzing their I/O behavior, properly evaluating and sizing storage systems can be extremely difficult as IT teams lack accurate information regarding the storage performance needed to keep them working optimally and to protect against slow-downs and outages. Yet, of the 412 IT professionals surveyed, only 41 percent said that they will profile their workloads before buying their next storage system and 56 percent trust either storage vendors or their VARs to advise them on the right solution. Organizations that are solely depending on vendor recommendations, or partners who are aligned with specific vendors, could leave their IT teams vulnerable. At best, there is a significant likelihood of over-provisioning and wasted financial expenditures, at worst it can mean a new storage solution is unable to keep up with the organization's business requirements and will lead to lost revenues.

A lack of insight into application workload behavior is compounded by a failure to understand how storage solutions will perform until they're put to work. Only 29 percent of the respondents surveyed said they would conduct on-premises load testing themselves before their next storage systems purchase, while another 11 percent indicated they would work with vendors or partners to conduct load testing before deciding on their next storage system purchase. Without understanding how a solution is likely to behave under normal, dynamic, and anticipated peak load conditions, it is much harder to predict whether a solution is correctly configured to manage an organization's unique demands. It is also likely to impact overall performance.