Copyright TechTarget - All rights reserved https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html Techtarget Feed Generator en Sun, 17 May 2026 15:03:41 GMT https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio editor@techtarget.com <p>The tools and software used by enterprises for project and portfolio management are evolving in response to workplace trends, including the rise in working from home, enterprise adoption of new cloud architectures and the integration of AI.</p> <p><a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/PPM-project-and-portfolio-management">PPM</a> tools are designed to help improve strategic planning across a portfolio of multiple projects. They help ensure a business's entire portfolio of projects is strategically aligned with enterprise goals by prioritizing and sequencing tasks based on estimated costs, benefits, risks and constraints.</p> <p>PPM tools sit atop <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/project-management">project management</a> tools, which help teams coordinate the people, materials and equipment involved in individual projects. PM tools, for their part, have also evolved to support business transformation initiatives by streamlining digital workflows through techniques such as <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/kanban">Kanban boards</a>, low-code/no-code development and AI and machine learning.</p> <p>Here are the vendors cited in this article: Asana; Broadcom Clarity PPM and Rally Software; EOS Software; Kantata; Microsoft Project; Monday.com; Planforge; Planisware; Planview; Proggio; Sciforma and KeyedIn; ServiceNow; Shibumi; Smartsheet; Software AG Alfabet; UMT360; WorkOtter; and Wrike.</p> <p>Before we get to the list, let's dive into what PPM tools do and how they are evolving.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="What are project portfolio management software and tools?"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>What are project portfolio management software and tools?</h2> <p>Every company has various projects vying for budget, staff and executive attention. Sometimes these projects complement each other. Sometimes they compete with each other, and in some cases, they do both.</p> <p>For example, a business team might propose a project to roll out a new SaaS-based offering to customers. The initiative hinges on the completion of work by various groups: The IT department needs to set up a new billing system. The finance department needs to set up a new accounting process for the change in revenue streams. And the legal team needs to work with the finance and business teams to assess the financial impact of different terms and service agreements.</p> <p>Each one of these projects takes time and money. The company can't sell the new SaaS service until the billing system is set up. But then setting up and integrating the billing system will require having a better understanding of how the new service will be delivered. The IT department must also work with the finance department to determine which tools or services might best align with their desired workflow.</p> <p>In the old days, people just put all of these things into a spreadsheet to store and share numbers about different scenarios. But things can get complicated as the number of projects, dependencies and metrics grow. This is where PPM tools come in: They provide an integrated whiteboard for each team to share their understanding of their requirements, estimated costs, benefits, risks, timeline and dependencies with the broader organization.</p> <p>If circumstances change, individuals can update a new assessment into the tool, which gets propagated to enterprise planners and other project managers. PPM can also identify opportunities to spend extra money to push critical projects through that are holding up others -- or to put other projects on hold until a new infrastructure project is complete.</p> <figure class="main-article-image full-col" data-img-fullsize="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/project_vs_program_vs_portfolio_management-f.png"> <img data-src="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/project_vs_program_vs_portfolio_management-f_mobile.png" class="lazy" data-srcset="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/project_vs_program_vs_portfolio_management-f_mobile.png 960w,https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/project_vs_program_vs_portfolio_management-f.png 1280w" alt="Chart summarizing differences between project, program and portfolio management." height="350" width="560"> <figcaption> <i class="icon pictures" data-icon="z"></i>Project, program and portfolio management are related but not the same. See how they differ in aims, scope and what defines success. </figcaption> <div class="main-article-image-enlarge"> <i class="icon" data-icon="w"></i> </div> </figure> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="SPM tools vs. APMR tools"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>SPM tools vs. APMR tools</h2> <p>In the past, PPM encompassed a broad class of planning tools used primarily by a small group of professional project planners. In response to rapid business and technology change and the need for continuous planning, PPM tools have evolved significantly in recent years. Today's tools have expanded in scope, marrying strategic planning with collaboration processes across business silos, enabling agile project management, incorporating AI and machine learning tools, and integrating with other enterprise business applications, among other innovations. As PPM evolves, two terms often used to describe PPM capabilities are <i>strategic portfolio management</i> (SPM) and <i>adaptive project management and reporting </i>(APMR):</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li>SPM starts with a big-picture approach to help align enterprise-wide strategy and execution. It includes features to help define key business strategies and desired outcomes. It also provides tools for identifying the talent, technology and activities that can help achieve those outcomes. This can help PPM teams prioritize specific projects and products.</li> <li>APMR<b> </b>takes a more bottom-up approach. It includes capabilities that help teams promote continuous collaboration, adapt to changing customer needs and improve execution, informed by various metrics. These tools help align communication and collaboration across many project teams, guiding ongoing project execution and enabling adaptations as required.</li> </ul> <p>Vendors are working to combine both capabilities. Examples include Planisware, Planview, Sciforma and ServiceNow. In some cases, these inclusive tools arose from different acquisitions or development efforts; some work plus additional licensing fees may be required to get SPM and APMR capabilities to work together for a given organization.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Benefits and key capabilities of PPM software and tools"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Benefits and key capabilities of PPM software and tools</h2> <p>PPM tools and software can boost the value of projects by enabling enterprises to do the following:</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Allocate assets more efficiently.</li> <li>Coordinate competing goals from different departments and business teams.</li> <li>Drive operational efficiency.</li> <li>Improve productivity.</li> <li>Minimize project dependency bottlenecks.</li> <li>Prioritize the highest-value projects.</li> <li>Reduce duplication across projects.</li> <li>Spread risks across multiple projects.</li> </ul> <p>The capabilities of PPM tools, as noted, vary widely across vendors and use cases. Generally speaking, PPM tools all offer the following core capabilities to different degrees:</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Improved planning and prioritization of projects using various scenario modeling, strategic roadmap and customer scoring techniques.</li> <li>Strategic alignment across teams and departments by using agreed-upon objectives and key results.</li> <li>Ability to reflect business goals in the context of specific projects and workflows.</li> <li><a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/resource-allocation">Resource management</a> tools to estimate the cost of new projects and track the actual time required to improve future estimates.</li> <li>Task management capabilities for remote collaboration.</li> <li>Financial analysis capabilities to help craft initial estimates and update these based on new circumstances.</li> <li><a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/risk-reward-ratio">Risk management capabilities</a> for identifying dependencies and resolving issues more quickly.</li> <li>Reporting capabilities for assessing progress and identifying obstacles.</li> </ul> <figure class="main-article-image full-col" data-img-fullsize="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/15_top_ppm_tools-f.png"> <img data-src="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/15_top_ppm_tools-f_mobile.png" class="lazy" data-srcset="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/15_top_ppm_tools-f_mobile.png 960w,https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/15_top_ppm_tools-f.png 1280w" alt="List of top project portfolio management software and tools in 2025." height="213" width="560"> <figcaption> <i class="icon pictures" data-icon="z"></i>Project portfolio management tools are evolving, but here are some of the best available software and tools in 2025. </figcaption> <div class="main-article-image-enlarge"> <i class="icon" data-icon="w"></i> </div> </figure> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Top PPM tools and software"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Top PPM tools and software</h2> <p>Here is a selection of leading PPM tools and software vendors, listed alphabetically, with brief takes on what the products do and how they are reviewed by by PPM experts, including users and consultancies such as Gartner and Forrester. The list was compiled based on internet research. Published rankings from Gartner's 2024 Magic Quadrant for APMR products and Forrester's 2024 Wave on SPM tools are also cited.</p> <h3>Asana</h3> <p>Named a Leader in Gartner's 2024 Magic Quadrant on APMR tools, Asana was singled out by the consultancy for the platform's translation into many languages, its investment in AI features and the high marks it gets for customer satisfaction. Cautions from Gartner's report include a business model that relies on growth to offset an operating deficit and the fact that enterprises will need to subscribe to higher-priced plans to get all the PPM features they'll need.</p> <p>Users on G2, the software review platform, cite the platform's flexible framework for managing projects, ease of use and integration capabilities with other tools and services such as Slack, Google Calendar and Microsoft Teams as plusses. Among the predominantly positive reviews on G2, however, some note that the interface can be overwhelming and complex for new users.</p> <h3>Broadcom Clarity PPM and Rally Software</h3> <p>Broadcom Clarity supports enterprise-wide PPM, while Rally adds the ability to connect projects with <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/value-stream-management">value stream management </a>capabilities. This combination promises to redefine how an enterprise can plan, execute and track work. Clarity can help improve strategic planning and prioritize investments, and it supports project tracking. Rally helps align these with <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/Agile-project-management">Agile development processes</a> across Broadcom's extensive development and testing tools collection.</p> <p>Forrester's 2024 SPM Wave report, which places Broadcom in its Leader category, noted that customers like the platform's ease of use, training and customer community. The report deemed Broadcom's AI capabilities "still in the early stages." The product, a good fit for larger organizations, services a wide range of industries and, according to Forrester, is well-suited for organizations undergoing agile transformation. The tool also supports extensive roadmapping capabilities to help align long-term plans with tactical execution. It also can help organize a collection of projects into a hierarchy to improve management, reporting and governance.</p> <h3>EOS Software</h3> <p>The EOS Software ITPM platform was designed to coordinate the work of strategy realization officers, program managers and enterprise architects. It has several features for adaptive planning, application portfolio management, scenario planning and resource management. It is a solid option for improving the connectivity between strategic planning and new IT services.</p> <p>EOS Software partnered with Planisware, another PPM vendor, to enhance IT integration across both tools. The tight integration with IT systems helps visualize connections between business strategies and applications, services or other IT resources.</p> <h3>Kantata</h3> <p>Kantata Professional Services Cloud, formerly known as Mavenlink + Kimble, is a PPM tool purpose-built for professional services firms. Features include task management, time tracking, resource management, financial management, and reporting and analytics, as well as real-time collaboration tools and integration with business applications such as CRM, ERP and HR systems.</p> <h3>Microsoft Project</h3> <p>Known for its project management capabilities, Microsoft Project is also used for project portfolio management in combination with the vendor's Microsoft Project server/Project Online repositories and its Power BI tool. The tool tends to generate diverging options, with some users saying the software's drag-and-drop functionality makes it relatively easy to use and others warning of a steep learning curve.</p> <h3>Monday.com</h3> <p>Monday.com's APMR capability aims to improve project and work management in hybrid office scenarios. Named a Leader in Gartner's 2024 APMR MQ, the product provides several templates to help organizations quickly get started. An extensive suite of collaboration tools can help organizations coordinate more efficiently across the office or the world. These tools promise to help boost a team's alignment, efficiency and productivity through customized workflows. Organizations can also create customizable dashboards to improve decision-making. It also supports project management, portfolio management, project planning and <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/What-is-risk-management-and-why-is-it-important">risk management</a> capabilities. The product is hosted on Amazon Web Services infrastructure.</p> <h3>Planforge</h3> <p>Planforge, formerly known as ONEPOINT Projects, is focused on APMR capabilities. One vital feature is the tool's hybrid approach: It supports both traditional <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsoftwarequality/definition/waterfall-model">waterfall</a> and Agile project methodologies. This enables enterprises to combine both approaches for different use cases. It supports various dashboards and charts to surface project and portfolio progress in real time and includes connectors for various popular tools, including Excel, Slack, Jira, Confluence, SAP and Microsoft Project.</p> <h3>Planisware</h3> <p>Planisware provides a single shared view across project and portfolio management functions. Named a Leader in Gartner's 2024 APMR MQ, the vendor's Planisware Orchestra product combines strong dashboard capabilities with industry best practices. Gartner lists its market responsiveness and overall viability among its strengths. Forrester's 2024 SPM Wave report places the vendor in its Leader category, citing its powerful strategy planning and business architecture. It has good support for both APMR and SPM. It also supports process automation to help prioritize initiatives, organize resources and coordinate execution. It is widely used by larger companies in industries like financial services, life sciences and manufacturing.</p> <h3>Planview</h3> <p>Planview, named a Leader in the Gartner 2024 APMR MQ and Forrester's 2024 SPM Wave, is one of the larger PPM vendors on this list. It supports a comprehensive set of APMR capabilities through Planview PPM Pro and Planview AdaptiveWork (formerly Clarizen) enabling businesses to pivot quickly when needs change.</p> <p>Planview also supports SPM capabilities. The company has grown through many acquisitions, including Troux, Projectplace, Innotas, LeanKit, Clarizen, Changepoint, Spigit, Tasktop and Enrich, and it has been integrating these new capabilities into its core platform. The combination of these tools can help connect strategic planning with enterprise architecture. According to Forrester, Planview's platform and core portfolio management capabilities are its big differentiators, enabling companies "to link planning and delivery functions as well as business architecture and APM [application portfolio management] capabilities."</p> <h3>Proggio</h3> <p>Proggio is focused on APMR capabilities that support broad project and work management. It supports a novel approach to data presentation that uses connected layers to create a digital map of project and portfolio progress. Users can zoom out to view the entire portfolio, zoom in to explore project workstreams and zoom in further to examine individual activities or specific bottlenecks. This simplifies navigation, and users can easily make changes when updates are identified.</p> <h3>Sciforma and KeyedIn</h3> <p>Sciforma acquired KeyedIn in March 2023. Prior to the combination, both companies separately earned Leader status in Gartner's APMR ranking. Sciforma Vantage, the company's PPM product, was called out for its overall viability, combining PPM with collaborative work management. This helps organizations formulate strategy, prioritize projects, track progress and manage projects within a single connected tool. The core Sciforma platform has been widely used across several industries, including biotech, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and telecommunications.</p> <p>KeyedIn Enterprise supports enterprise PPM, SPM and adaptive project management. Its enterprise tools help model enterprise initiatives or improve <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/Ultimate-guide-to-digital-transformation-for-enterprise-leaders">digital transformation</a> efforts. Essential capabilities support strategic alignment, portfolio selection and prioritization, and resource capacity planning. It integrates with various tools, including Jira, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Power BI, Salesforce and QuickBooks.</p> <h3>ServiceNow</h3> <p>ServiceNow has a strong presence in cloud-based IT service management. It recently rebranded its IT business management offering as ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management. Its strength lies in connecting business planning with actual IT infrastructure. This takes advantage of ServiceNow's extensive monitoring and reporting capabilities. The offering supports performance analytics, demand management, resource management and innovation management. It can also help teams simulate and compare potential outcomes with scenario planning. It can align new plans with application performance management to monitor the effects of new programs on IT infrastructure. An additional advantage is the ability to automatically implement new ideas through ServiceNow's low-code tools and assess the results before scaling them up. The ServiceNow tool earned Leader status in Forrester's Q2 2024 Wave on strategic portfolio management tools.</p> <h3>Shibumi</h3> <p>Shibumi is provisioned as a cloud-based PPM service. The company highlights its scalability, accessibility, and ability to provide a single source of truth with real-time visibility. It includes tools that surface both financial and nonfinancial metrics and results. A template library helps executives make informed decisions through support for program status and KPIs.</p> <p>One powerful feature is direct integration with various <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/Ultimate-guide-to-RPA-robotic-process-automation">robotic process automation tools</a> from Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism and UiPath. It also supports AI integrations with Dataiku, DataRobot and IBM Watson to help improve predictions and planning. These integrations help speed up the time to value to help teams quickly jumpstart deployment and adapt to new goals.</p> <h3>Smartsheet</h3> <p>Smartsheet started out as a better spreadsheet for collaboration. Over the years, it has expanded into various areas, including PPM. It provides a variety of customizable templates that help companies and departments get started with individual projects and then connect them into portfolios. It supports an extensive set of integrations into tools from ServiceNow, Google, Microsoft, Slack, Salesforce, Jira and dozens of other companies.</p> <p>One of its core strengths is its simplicity. The familiar spreadsheet-like interface provides many ways for business users to extend it to different use cases. This helps teams bring in data from third-party apps, automate processes and customize workflows.</p> <h3>Software AG Alfabet</h3> <p>Software AG has been building data and software development tools since 1969 and acquired Alfabet PPM solutions in 2013. It combined these tools with its other ARIS process modeling products and has continued enhancing its PPM capabilities' breadth and depth. The result is better linkage between the interdependent perspectives of IT, business, finance and risk, giving PPM teams the ability to better understand the impact of new ideas. It also supports built-in enterprise architecture capabilities.</p> <p>Teams can describe IT systems in terms of application, information and technical layers. This knowledge can also guide the development of standards to harmonize projects and infrastructure and to reduce operational costs. At the same time, it helps less technical users create reports, explore the impact of new ideas and update plans. It comes with an extensive set of AI and machine learning capabilities for discovering portfolio shortcomings.</p> <div class="youtube-iframe-container"> <iframe id="ytplayer-0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CPpLLlc8vT8?autoplay=0&amp;modestbranding=1&amp;rel=0&amp;widget_referrer=null&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.techtarget.com" type="text/html" height="360" width="640" frameborder="0"></iframe> </div> <h3>UMT360</h3> <p>UMT360 Strategic Portfolio Manager was specifically designed to help drive business transformation. It is a cloud-based platform with separate modules for analytics and enterprise integration. The company acquired FIOS Insight in 2021, which added enterprise architecture capabilities for analyzing existing IT systems and planned changes. It also supports a collection of industry reference models to guide new projects, with best practices for the appropriate architecture.</p> <p>One essential aspect is support for packaged applications (called Accelerators) that help customers get started quickly with a base level of capability -- laying the groundwork for adding more modules later. These modules support what-if analysis, resource planning and benefits realization. The platform also supports an extensive array of integrations with other tools, including Jira, Oracle Fusion Cloud Financials, SAP and ServiceNow.</p> <h3>WorkOtter</h3> <p>WorkOtter is a cloud-based PPM tool with a powerful set of APMR capabilities. A core strength is that it provides templates and best practices that help teams follow project management industry best practices. It can deliver prescriptive guidance to help projects and portfolios meet goals and adapt when required. Named a Visionary in the Gartner 2024 APMR MQ, the product also supports a variety of financial management capabilities to help evaluate tradeoffs across labor, capital expenses, operational expenses and quoted versus actual costs.</p> <h3>Wrike</h3> <p>Wrike focuses on project management and collaboration, providing a wide range of features that include task management and resource management. Named a Visionary in the Gartner 2024 APMR MQ, the product integrates with various platforms and tools and gets high marks for strong reporting and analysis tools. User reviews report that the large range of features can be overwhelming for people unfamiliar with project management tools.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="How to choose the best PPM tool or software for your business"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>How to choose the best PPM tool or software for your business</h2> <p>Project and portfolio management is a vast field with considerable variation across its range of tools. Where to begin?</p> <p>It is probably helpful to start by inventorying what business managers are already using to manage projects. If managers are happy using Excel, it may make sense to shortlist other relatively simple PPM tools. If you have an extensive SaaS portfolio, exploring some of the other SaaS-based PPM offerings may make sense.</p> <p>Many of the most popular PPM tools make it easy to get started and kick the tires in a short period. Trialing the tools can give you an idea of how they work and how they might simplify project planning and management, as compared with your existing approach. Testing tools can also help define and refine the capabilities your business needs.</p> <p>Once your team has identified what capabilities they are looking for, then you can start to explore some of the more sophisticated offerings. It may be that the essential tools are good enough for the long haul. Even relatively simple ones have reported very high ROIs, and the ease of use can boost adoption.</p> <p>However, it is also worth investigating how some of the more sophisticated tools are pushing the cutting edge. It is also worth keeping an eye on upgrades to your favorite options. New AI capabilities are rapidly evolving. These can both simplify the project and portfolio management experience while simultaneously ingesting and contextualizing data from more sources.</p> <p><b>Editor's note</b>: <em>This article was updated in November 2024 to reflect changes in the PPM market.</em></p> <p><em>George Lawton is a journalist based in London. Over the last 30 years, he has written more than 3,000 stories about computers, communications, knowledge management, business, health and other areas that interest him.</em></p> </section> Project portfolio management software and tools in 2025 promote strategic management of projects and agile tactics. Read our PPM list for guidance on which tools do what. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/collab_a78129054.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/tip/Best-project-portfolio-management-software-and-tools-in-2023 Tue, 19 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT <p>Dell Technologies World 2023 highlighted some of the complex issues technology companies face in trying to address sustainability.</p> <p>An overwhelming 98% of midsize and large organizations acknowledge that environmental, social and governance (<a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/environmental-social-and-governance-ESG">ESG</a>) factors influence the selection of potential IT suppliers, according to research presented by TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group at the technology conference in Las Vegas. Dell is among the 97% of organizations identified in the Enterprise Strategy Group research that said internal ESG programs affect business strategy.</p> <p>"Sustainability is no longer about style points," said Chuck Whitten, co-COO at Dell, headquartered in Round Rock, Texas. He highlighted some of Dell's initiatives and progress on the topic during his keynote speech.</p> <p>But attendees at the show expressed concern that the lack of standards and often conflicting metrics in carbon measurement and accounting standards can hamper their own ability to track the true carbon effects of their IT operations accurately.</p> <p>Here are insights from the conference that underscore the complexity of sustainability progress.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="AI sustainability challenges"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>AI sustainability challenges</h2> <p>Sessions on sustainable IT were well attended, but the prospect of enormous power consumption to support generative AI models and training was an undercurrent that permeated many of the discussions.</p> <p>With announcements of new on-premises AI, workload-optimized power consumption -- already responsible for roughly 80% of a server's lifetime carbon footprint -- was clearly top of mind.</p> <p>Dell is committed to a 30% overall reduction in carbon emissions from products sold by Dell, according to Cassandra Garber, Dell's VP of ESG.</p> <p>Against that backdrop, there was some skepticism as to whether the goals of enabling organizations to create private artificial intelligence environments on premises to protect critical data are at odds with ESG goals.</p> <p>For now, the emphasis seems to be on delivering raw power, with efficiency taking a temporary back seat at this early stage of AI model enablement.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Laptop for a circular economy"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Laptop for a circular economy</h2> <p>As a major provider of laptops, Dell re-emphasized Concept Luna, a <a href="https://www.dell.com/en-us/blog/pushing-the-boundaries-of-sustainable-pc-design-concept-luna/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">platform</a> specifically designed to be environmentally friendly and engineered to be more suitable for the <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/circular-economy">circular economy</a>.</p> <p>My hands-on experience with the prototypes proved that the Concept Luna laptops could be disassembled for recycling or repair without tools and, in only five or six steps, could scale well in a mass recycling situation.</p> <p>Greater repairability may extend the life of these laptops, ultimately reducing the number of built laptops. Roughly 80% of the environmental impact of laptops comes from their manufacture. The <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/3-tips-CIOs-can-use-for-more-sustainable-device-management">environmental effects could be reduced</a> by making fewer laptops that last longer and that incorporate recyclable materials.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Greener data center"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Greener data center</h2> <p>Other areas where attendees could witness progress on sustainability were on display in modular data centers -- where air cooling could result in a power usage effectiveness (<a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatacenter/definition/power-usage-effectiveness-PUE">PUE</a>) at or near 1.1, well below the 1.55 average for the year 2022.</p> <p>From a sustainability perspective, that amounts to a 29% increase in PUE -- a 29% decrease in power not making it to the compute devices -- which is material, especially to firms that might be subject to high local power costs or forced to use legacy, polluting power sources in remote locations.</p> <p>Using as little "dirty" power as possible can help an organization meet its carbon footprint goals more easily by requiring fewer <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/carbon-offset">carbon offsets</a> -- a benefit that translates directly to the bottom line.</p> </section> At Dell Technologies World 2023, company reps discussed sustainability and showed some areas where the company has advanced. But making progress is no straightforward journey. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/sustainability_a1211525770.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/sustainability/opinion/Sustainability-highlights-from-Dell-Technologies-World-2023 Thu, 01 Jun 2023 16:31:00 GMT <p>So many things happened in 2022 in the areas of data backup, recovery and governance! Many of my peers would describe these markets as somewhat mature. I would agree that they're not new and "shiny" like other markets, but it would be wrong to conclude that they are not extremely dynamic, lucrative for vendors and investors, and a source of fundamental technology for IT professionals.</p> <p>These markets are also evolving to adjust to new IT infrastructure driven by digital transformation, new business and legal mandates, and the constant threat of data loss -- voluntary or not.</p> <p>Below you'll find a look at what I believe 2023 has in store for us.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Recoverability and resilience will remain a key initiative"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Recoverability and resilience will remain a key initiative</h2> <p>The ransomware epidemic is a flourishing business for cybercriminals who are full of ominous creativity and plots to extort more and more money from ill-prepared organizations. The cryptocurrency meltdowns of last year are unlikely to change the frequency or seriousness of attacks and ransom demands, in case you were wondering.</p> <p>In 2022, TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) conducted a <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchdisasterrecovery/opinion/Ransomware-preparedness-The-long-road-ahead">ransomware preparedness study</a>, "The Long Road Ahead to Ransomware Preparedness." Our study showed an ill-prepared market with only 15% of organizations making the cut as "leaders" in our model. The dimension in which everybody scored poorly was backup and recovery. Even leaders don't get more than a 40% score. This year we will take another look at ransomware preparedness and gauge how the market has evolved.</p> <p>In 2023, I expect that we will see organizations not only continue to invest in the protection of their data assets, but very likely invest more than ever in this area of IT. I also expect to see data protection vendors continue to accelerate their partnerships with cyber vendors, and in some cases, engage in M&amp;A activities to offer <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/Build-a-strong-cyber-resilience-strategy-with-existing-tools">broader cyber-resilience features and options</a>. I would also caution them to not over-pivot and declare themselves cybersecurity vendors. Don't worry: There's plenty to do around backup and recovery.</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> I expect that we will see organizations not only continue to invest in the protection of their data assets, but very likely invest more than ever in this area of IT. </figure> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="SaaS and cloud workloads are the next holy grail for backup vendors"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>SaaS and cloud workloads are the next holy grail for backup vendors</h2> <p>ESG's 2022 study, "SaaS Data Protection: A Work in Progress," demonstrated that the adoption of SaaS workloads is going to continue and become even more pervasive. More importantly, it showed that the backup and recovery mechanisms in place to protect SaaS applications leave a lot to be desired. <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatabackup/opinion/SaaS-data-protection-is-a-challenging-but-critical-task">SaaS applications are mission-critical</a> for most organizations.</p> <p>One would logically expect to see the same level of protection in place as when the applications were in the data center. Wrong! Our data indicates that one-third of the respondents think that the SaaS vendor is responsible for their backup. Very wrong! That's what I call the SaaS data protection <a href="https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/18996/548214">disconnect</a>.</p> <p>While <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatabackup/tip/Compare-SaaS-data-retention-policies-from-4-major-providers">SaaS vendors</a> rightly and often communicate about their "shared responsibility model," it's clear to me that there may be some confusion in the market about the fact that, as an organization, you are always responsible for your data. There are no magic backup people in the cloud.</p> <p>Beyond the protection of SaaS applications, our research will delve deeper into cloud data protection this year, so stay tuned.</p> <p>This realization that backups are needed for cloud workloads is going to become more obvious in 2023, potentially amplified by my previous points on ransomware and by the market education work that some vendors will undertake -- to their great benefit, I might add. The battle lines for the next evolution of the market are going to be drawn more clearly this year: I expect vendors to literally race to add more features and more SaaS platforms to their lineup, along with more capabilities to protect <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchstorage/tip/Apply-hyperscale-data-center-design-principles-to-IT-storage">hyperscale-based data</a>, which also includes being great at protecting K8s environments.</p> <p>The biggest hurdle: How many SaaS applications can you cover, and how quickly? It's a development investment dilemma. There are dozens of SaaS applications that are all mission-critical, but no standard APIs. As an end user, wouldn't you want to go with the vendors who cover most, if not all, of your SaaS workloads?</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Data governance and compliance continue to accelerate data management transitions"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Data governance and compliance continue to accelerate data management transitions</h2> <p>In 2022, we also looked at the evolving strategic role of data governance and uncovered some key trends that confirm that compliance and data governance are going to be key for IT, moving forward. Organizations have <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchstorage/post/Managing-Data-Growth-in-the-Zettabyte-Era">a lot of data to manage</a>, and it's doubling approximately every two years. <br><br>And this data is full of personally identifiable information (<a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/personally-identifiable-information-PII">PII</a>). In our upcoming 2023 study, "The Strategic and Evolving Role of Data Governance," we estimate on average that 35% of all data is PII spread across the infrastructure. So, as an organization, you've got a significant and -- frankly -- unavoidable data compliance/governance challenge.</p> <p>The good news is that data governance has moved up the corporate ladder, so executives and the board of directors care -- or at least have budgets to help. The bad news is that there is not enough unified technology to deal with the <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatamanagement/definition/data-governance">data governance complexity</a>. That's because managing data governance requires a lot of processes and technology, with cyber-risk being a serious consideration for best practices.</p> <p>In 2023 I expect to see more spending happening in this area in which there are vendors coming from multiple horizons: data-focused/DevOps, cybersecurity and data protection/backup and recovery.</p> <p>Backup and recovery vendors are particularly well positioned if they can execute on the marketing and sales sides: Data governance involves new personas. End-user organizations will also take a closer look at their development practices in order to build data privacy by design in their application development. Very much like with ransomware, vendors will be expanding their capabilities through partnerships and targeted M&amp;A activities.</p> </section> How should backup teams prepare for a new year? Data protection pros can adjust to a changing IT landscape by keeping an eye on ransomware, data governance and compliance. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/security_g1192070289.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatabackup/opinion/3-data-protection-and-governance-predictions-for-2023 Thu, 26 Jan 2023 12:39:00 GMT <p>The rise in attacks and persistent threats has expanded the demand for information security services, with some estimates expecting the market size to double in the next five years. Information security is getting harder to achieve as the complexity of environments and security infrastructure requires skill sets and resources many companies do not have, analysts say.</p> <p><a href="https://searchcompliance.techtarget.com/definition/regulatory-compliance">Regulatory compliance</a> is also driving more companies to consider outsourcing security services, especially small and medium-sized businesses that may not have been drawn to outsourcing security services outside of cloud.</p> <p>Depending on the provider, companies can "buy" hardware, <a href="https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/group/security-as-a-service/#_downloads" target="_blank">software and infrastructure</a> along with the specialists to manage these services. Some managed security service providers can also help ensure clients are up-to-date on the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchhealthit/definition/HIPAA">HIPAA</a> and other standards. But strategy implementation is still up to the CISO.</p> <p>One criticism of MSSPs is that despite increasing levels of specialization, most do not have industry knowledge or understand the business environment like internal staff. (This "failure to understand the business" complaint has also been hurled at many security professionals.) While market analysts forecast that outsourcing security services will continue to increase across numerous verticals, MSSPs are starting to organize their security engineers and analysts into industry-specific teams, according to Jaikumar Vijayan, who reports on the evolving role of MSSPs in this month's cover story.</p> <p>"The key is putting together a set of internal and external experts so that resources are allocated appropriately to secure your business," Jeff Pollard, principal analyst at Forrester Research, told Vijayan. Going forward, more companies may embrace "expertise as a service" as CISOs seek security analytics, threat hunting and other hard-to-find skill sets.</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> While market analysts forecast that outsourcing security services will continue to increase across numerous verticals, MSSPs are starting to organize their security engineers and analysts into industry-specific teams. </figure> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>Persistent threats have caused the U.S. government and private sector to focus on intelligence sharing in recent years, but the framework for how that will happen remains unclear. Frequent contributor Adam Rice, the CISO at defense contractor Cubic Corp., examines the shadowy business of cyber attribution, advanced persistent threat groups and the current administration. If the U.S. government is aware of nation-state hacking against industry—or potential backdoors in widely used technologies from Apple, Google, Samsung and others—what is its role in sharing this information with the private sector?</p> <p>Also in this issue, contributor Alan R. Earls checks in with Annalea Ilg, the newly appointed vice president and CISO of ViaWest, to find out more about her latest role: It involves strategy and risk management of the cloud security and managed service provider as well as protection of information security services. Columnist and information security technology strategist Marcus J. Ranum catches up with cloud security veteran Chenxi Wang to talk about diversity in the industry and ways to continue to move forward.&nbsp;</p> Despite increasing levels of specialization, managed security service providers often don't understand the business you're in. That may be changing. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/searchSecurity/information_security_threats/security_article_026.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/opinion/Outsourcing-security-services-rises-as-MSSPs-focus-on-industries Mon, 03 Apr 2017 11:15:25 GMT <p>Is the big data market converging? That was one of the first questions <b>Tom Davenport</b>, fellow for the <b>MIT Center for Digital Business</b>, asked the <a href="http://www.mitcio.com/big-data-analytics-and-insights" target="_blank">big data panel</a> he moderated at the <b>MIT Sloan CIO Symposium</b>. The resounding answer from panelists? Not yet.</p> <p>For all the big data hype and the urgency companies feel to capitalize on big data, the vendor market is immature, the panelists agreed. The field is replete with specialized tools that don't always play nice with megavendor stacks and legacy systems. Plus, even when businesses find an off-the-shelf product from big software vendors -- Oracle, IBM and SAP -- the technology tends to work well for some industries but not others.</p> <p>The panelists said the current state of market flux is to be expected. "It's what happens in our industry when you've got fundamental cultural changes. And that's what you've got here," said <b>Barry Morris</b>, founder and CEO of cloud database provider <b>NuoDB Inc</b>. Cultural change -- which big data represents -- leads to innovation, Morris said, which invariably leads to market segmentation and even fragmentation. Ultimately, that's an unsustainable situation because it leaves businesses "to build these vertical stacks at enormous economic costs," he said.</p> <p>Or at least <i>most</i> of the market isn't converging. <b>Puneet Batra</b>, a data scientist and co-founder of <b>LevelTrigger</b>, a startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, illustrated the growing complexity of the term "big data" when he talked about how the market appears to be responding to a "bifurcation" of use cases.</p> <p>For operational use cases, the market is fragmented by necessity. "There's always going to be a need for very customized solutions that can serve up quick performances," he said, pointing to technology like Hadapt. But with exploratory use cases, "we're starting to see some convergence," he said. Certain technologies such as a database or a NoSQL store are bubbling up to the surface as preferred -- and soon to be standard? -- features.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Spark vs. MapReduce"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Spark vs. MapReduce</h2> <p>Speaking of big data technology, Morris and Batra both observed that MapReduce users are beginning "to migrate" to <b>Apache Spark</b>, an open source, in-memory cluster computing framework for analytics.</p> <p>My colleague, Jack Vaughan, wrote about Spark in March and explained that, like the original MapReduce processing engine, the technology sits on top of the <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatamanagement/definition/Hadoop-Distributed-File-System-HDFS">Hadoop Distributed File System</a> and other Hadoop data sources. But unlike MapReduce, Spark processes data faster and "supports more generalized computing methods."</p> <p>Spark was developed at the <b>AMPLab</b> at <b>UC Berkeley</b>. It came out of stealth mode in June 2013 and became an Apache top level project in February of this year.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Google's new 'search'"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Google's new 'search'</h2> <p>Google's leap from Internet search to driverless car isn't as big as it sounds. Instead of computer code, Google is just crawling a different terrain. "I think of it as physical search engines -- search of the physical world," said <b>John Leonard</b>, professor of mechanical and ocean engineering, at <b>MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory</b>, at the symposium.</p> <p>Doing so creates precise maps that can help driverless cars prepare for the expected. But the bigger challenge lies in reacting to the unexpected. "The ability to understand what's happening in the physical world and to predict what might happen next, say at a busy intersection, is really challenging for machines," he said.</p> <p>Will Google be the company to figure it out? Leonard's on the fence about that. "I have two visions of the future: One is that Google's going to win," he said. "And the other is we're not quite there yet."</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The digital dynamic"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The digital dynamic</h2> <p>The days of competing within a single vertical are over and you can thank digitization for that. An example? <b>Peter Weill</b>, senior researcher and chairman of the <b>MIT Center for Information Systems Research</b>, pointed to an Australian supermarket chain to illustrate how a company is using technology to &nbsp;upend another industry. "<b>Coles</b> sold more insurance -- or at least an equal amount of insurance -- than any of the leading insurance companies for the first time" this year, he said.</p> <div class="aside extraInfo floatAlt"> <h3 style=" text-align: center;">Previously on<br> The Data Mill</h3> <p>CFOs get schooled on big data analytics</p> <p>The road to innovation is paved with APIs</p> <p>Ten open data examples to get CIOs thinking</p> </div> <p>While digitization is flattening the competition landscape, it's also inspiring "interesting, new product development," he said. Just look at <b>Orange Money</b> by <b>France Telecom</b>. In Africa, where more than 50% of residents have a mobile phone but less than 10% have a bank account, Orange Money enables customers "to open an account, transfer funds, receive their salary, pay bills," according to the company website.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Say what?!?"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Say what?!?</h2> <p>"The world is becoming programmable. It's not just digital products; it's all products."<br> -- <b>Narinder Singh</b>, president of <b>CloudSpokes</b> and <b>TopCoder</b>; co-founder and chief strategy officer at <b>Appirio</b></p> <p>"You have to be willing to be wrong. You should never, ever grasp on to any of your own ideas as religious in nature that you would never let them go." -- <b>Mark Holst-Knudsen</b>, president, <b>ThomasNet</b></p> <p>"My first job is to put people like me out of business." -- Puneet Batra, data scientist, founder of LevelTrigger</p> <p>"The problem is law is always written with slop in there and human judgment in there. And that human judgment is disappearing as everything becomes datafied." -- <b>Alex "Sandy" Pentland</b>, professor, <b>MIT Media Lab</b></p> <p>"Technology is moving fast and people don't change as fast, it's pretty clear. Turns out the group that's most flexible tends to be 30 to 40 year olds because, in many respects, they're doing this for the second time." -- <b>Peter Burris</b>, vice president and research director, <b>Forrester Research Inc.</b></p> <p><i>Welcome to The Data Mill, a weekly column devoted to all things data. Heard something newsy (or gossipy)? </i><a href="mailto:nlaskowski@techtarget.com"><i>Email me</i></a><i> or find me on Twitter at </i><a href="https://twitter.com/TT_Nicole" target="_blank"><i>@TT_Nicole</i></a><i>.</i></p> </section> The diverging big data market, Google's new 'search,' Spark versus MapReduce: The Data Mill reports from the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/digdeeper/5.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/opinion/The-big-data-market-rises-and-must-converge-just-not-yet Tue, 27 May 2014 11:44:20 GMT 60 webmaster@techtarget.com