CRN Survey Finds IT Leaders Looking for New Solutions

Park Place Hardware Maintenance


Simon Bitton November 23, 2020

Third party data center maintenance and network analytics gain favor with CIOs, CISOs, and IT Directors

Please, sir, can I have some more? IT services, that is.

That might be the main takeaway from a recent survey by the UK arm of CRN, conducted as a part of the tech news site’s CRN ON virtual event, which took place in November 2020. Event registrants—from VARs, Channel Partners and MSPs—provided feedback about their IT environments and needs. The responses underscore how much opportunity exists for service providers to ease the load on teams responsible for complex digital infrastructure.

The Data Center Lives On…and So Does Third Party Maintenance

For all the talk of cloud among commentators in the IT space, only 30% of CRN survey respondents describe their IT infrastructure as cloud-based. This finding echoes other research indicating that hybrid infrastructure—neither fully cloud nor completely on-premises—is the dominant architecture adopted by 84 percent of enterprises.

With many workloads remaining on-site—and some even returning to owned data centers and colocation facilities for numerous reasons—someone needs to maintain all the data center hardware involved. More than half of CRN survey respondents (55.5%) look outside their organization to third party maintenance (TPM) providers for data center equipment support.

Why do they seek assistance with this essential function? These IT leaders highlighted words like:

  • Cost
  • Skills
  • Expertise
  • Service
  • Flexibility
  • Focus

This is remarkable penetration of the basic third party maintenance messaging—that TPM, as it’s known, is a lower cost, higher performing option when compared to DIY data center maintenance and OEM contracts. Outsourcing not only taps the many service options of TPM providers, it removes the hardware maintenance burden from staff and makes for an easier, nearly “hands off” data center support capability.

Network Analytics

Another area Park Place Technologies is particularly interested in is network analytics. In working with customers and channel partners over the past several years, we’ve witnessed how important the network is to the business, including the ability to leverage hybrid and even multi-cloud strategies to maximum effect. After all, you can’t efficiently access cloud applications or countless other resources without a high-performance network. But as complexity increases, so do networking challenges.

The CRN survey confirmed our own observations which is that network analytics is taking on increasing focus for many organizations. In fact, more than one in three respondents (39.4%) described it as very important or crucial and almost one in four (24%) is seeking a new network analytics solution.

Finding the Right Partner

All of this should come as good news to those in the IT solutions and services space, but mostly for companies with a robust online presence and a strong record of delivering for their clients. That’s because IT leaders are using online research (56%) and peer recommendations (33%) to find their way to new providers they can count on.

If you’ve run across this post as part of your own online research into third party maintenance, network analytics, or a comprehensive DMSO solution (short for Discover, Monitor, Support, Optimize) welcome! Take a look around and let us know if you have any questions. And if you need some peer input to guide you, we’ve got some great case studies here.

About the Author

Simon Bitton, Sr. Director, Marketing, EMEA & APAC
Simon is responsible for driving the full mix of multi-channel marketing activities, sales and operations support on behalf of Park Place Technologies in Europe & Asia, working with customers and channel partners on supplier management, new business development and market research. He brings 15+ years of deep experience to his position, honed over the course of his work in a variety of service sector roles.