With an increased wave of recent security threats in addition to the ongoing need to ensure data is safe, Canadian organizations are keeping a close eye on their security practices and technologies, according to a new survey from CDW Canada, a leading provider of technology solutions for Canadian organizations in the public and private sectors.
While security is always top of mind for businesses, when asked about specific areas of top priority for security, the majority of Canadian organizations cited intrusion prevention (39 per cent) and ransomware protection (35 per cent).
Cloud continues to grow
Another area of focus for Canadian organizations is the cloud, with 50 per cent of businesses indicating their cloud strategy for 2017 includes hybrid solutions, moving workloads over time; while 16 per cent were planning to be “cloud-first” going forward. In the data centre, redundancy is a key goal (29 per cent), followed by expansion and scalability (27 per cent) and cost reduction (26 per cent).
Canadian organizations in the public and private sectors also cited analytics and big data, as well as the Internet of Things (IoT), as the top combined emerging technologies that will have the most impact on their business in the next 12 to 18 months, with 28 and 27 per cent respectively.
Other findings from the survey include:
- Canadian organizations’ unified communications strategies include integration of new features or products into current tools/applications (32 per cent), and upgrading or updating current tools and applications (31 per cent).
- Just over a quarter of respondents said they would continue to use current tools and applications (26 per cent) while only 10 per cent said they would replace current legacy tools and applications with new technologies.
- When considering partner services, Canadian organizations look most for support during deployments and upgrades (31 per cent). This was followed by migrations and replacements (21 per cent), managed services (19 per cent), and architecture and design (15 per cent).