With the end of the year fast approaching and the 31st Annual Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas this week, this post is dedicated to a quick reflection on emerging data center trends and their impact on security.

The global technology analyst firm Ovum[1] expects the market to become further focused on cost-savings and efficient internal IT delivery methods with broader virtualization, cloud and the use of converged infrastructure systems in 2013.  This closely mirrors the agenda for the Gartner Data Center Conference where the agenda shows focus on trends such as IT Operational Excellence, Optimal Cloud Strategies and Delivering Greater Business Value.

As organizations look to achieve greater levels of efficiency, they will continue to find traditional static security models a great inhibitor. IT executives and data center teams will need to evolve security processes and controls to be more flexible and cater for an increasingly virtual world where services and virtual machines are less in their control, dynamic and self-provisioned. According to Ovum, 2013 will also see the rise of the role of the Chief Sustainability Officer, which will mean more of continuing to do more with less. However, security cannot be a tradeoff as data centers will need to be increasingly resilient to meet new levels of uptime and availability. Privacy will take on a greater focus as the move to public cloud becomes a reality rather than just a board room conversation, and the role of a Chief Privacy Office will become pivotal in ensuring the right balance of processes and controls.

Recently AFCOM[2] published research revealing that although one in eight data centers had experienced a cyber-attack or data breach in the past three years, more than one in five still admit to not testing their security plans during this same period. This highlights the opportunity that organizations have in 2013 to build security in as a key element of their broader data center plan. If organizations are to meet their business, resilience, and sustainability goals as they move forward, they will have to future proof themselves against increasingly more targeted and evasive cyber threats. What are your plans in 2013?  Write and tell us.

[1]http://ovum.com/research/2013-trends-to-watch-data-center-technology/
[2]http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/7/prweb9692309.htm