4 Challenges CIOs and IT Managers Need to Overcome to Succeed

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Today’s CIO and IT manager have more lessons to learn, things to address, and challenges to overcome than any generation prior to now. New technologies burst on the scene in rapid-fire fashion, knocking aside older technologies faster than you can say, ‘but we just bought that’. The datacenter is moving to the cloud, desktops are becoming virtualized, and security problems and solutions are more complex than ever. What are the most significant challenges that you must face and overcome to make it in today’s fast-paced, highly competitive world of IT? Here are 4 challenges CIOs and IT Managers need to overcome to succeed:

1. Finding & Controlling Where the Data Goes


In workers’ smartphones; on the email servers; sometimes, sitting in chats on social media — do you know where your critical data is?

In many enterprises, data is the most valuable asset they have. Securing that data is essential on so many levels: it’s critical to maintain operations and assure productivity, it’s important to safeguard because losing it or allowing it to leak in the wrong hands is an IT, Legal and PR nightmare, and your job basically depends on it. This is more than just knowing what security tools to use and how to use them. It involves being able to determine where the data is stored, who has access, where it’s transmitted and to whom, and what regulatory issues it is subject to.

2. Mastering SMAC (Without Getting Smacked)

SMAC — Social, Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud — have brought immense complexity to the IT infrastructure. Mobile compatibility and security issues are the things that keep CIOs and IT managers up at night. Data analytics has not only introduced hiring issues (where, oh where, can that data scientist be?), it’s also brought tremendous demands for additional storage capacity, better networking solutions, and yes, even more security concerns. The IT pro who can master the challenges associated with SMAC will have no trouble finding employment as we barrel toward the next decade.

3. Finding the Delicate Balance Between Security & Accessibility


The business wants easy access for high productivity. IT knows this is a dangerous way to handle data. Get ready for a career-long game of tug of war. Those who find the right balance between accessibility and security win the game.

Today’s CIO and IT manager walk a tightrope between providing easy, seamless accessibility to the company’s data and making sure that the data is kept secure and within compliance. This usually means a near-constant battle with the business side of the company, and a whole lot of time conducting ROI assessments to prove that all this ‘security stuff’ is actually delivering value to the organization. The successful IT professional will find ways to justify the costs, time, and trouble that good security solutions require, while proving its ROI to the business and still empowering users with high-performance data access.

4. Getting a Handle on the Cloud

Touched on briefly in number two, the cloud is going to be one of the most important factors in enterprise growth and profitability over the next several years. The cloud will allow savvy IT pros to keep storage costs down, even as the amount and importance of data continues to grow. The cloud will also help the smart IT pro address security concerns, as they learn to share some of these worries and burdens with their trusted cloud storage providers.

Ready to begin forging a relationship like this with your cloud storage vendor? Zadara Storage is here to help. Learn more about our solutions: read our ‘Zadara Storage Cloud’ whitepaper, then start a free trial to see the Zadara advantages firsthand.

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