New study: are state and local agencies ready to deploy the 'big five' IT initiatives?

• Position: INFO TECHNOLOGY

Manufacturing and distribution executives have become more aware of the risks associated with business information and data, especially as social media becomes more widespread. Yet more than two-thirds believe their data is at little or no risk, according to a research report from the consulting firm McGladrey. Given that their controls are often insufficient or ineffective, this raises the question of whether the executives fully understand their exposure.

U.S. government agencies are looking to the "Big Five of IT" to help them respond to increasing responsibilities and decreasing funding, according to the new study "Big Five in Overdrive: Are State and Local Networks Ready?" by MeriTalk. In fact, most of the agencies said they plan to deploy over the next three years the "big five" IT initiatives:

1. Data center consolidation

2. Mobility

3. Security

4. Big data

5. Cloud computing

However, 94% also said their agency's IT network is not fully prepared for the resulting demands.

Government IT professionals generally buy into the promise of these initiatives to improve performance, productivity, and service, yet two-thirds (63%) admitted they would face moderate to significant network bottleneck risks, and 89% said they would need additional network capacity just to maintain current service levels.

These aren't the only likely ramifications of the infrastructure imbalance created by unsynchronized adoption of these technologies, according to the report. Additionally, the IT professionals said their agencies will face security risks (59%), bandwidth limitations (55%), storage limitations (44%), and network latency (40%).

Surprisingly, the respondents aren't asking for new budget or policy changes to overcome these challenges. They want better coordination, which they believe would result in increased efficiencies (72%), shared best practices (59%), and better...