SaaS shines amid low global IT spending; tips for your private cloud journey

Last year’s record decrease in IT spending is still causing ripples in 2016, according to a recent Gartner report. But despite depressed global IT spending in 2016, software and IT services expenditures are set to increase in the coming year. In this week’s Searchlight, Gartner analyst John Lovelock discusses the IT spending forecast and what it means for CIOs. Also: the Dell-EMC deal threatens to fall apart in the eleventh hour; Microsoft gets philanthropic by donating $1 billion in public cloud services to non-profits.

Building your own internal private cloud comes with many benefits, as State Street Corp. discovered when the financial services provider built its own cloud platform. It is also a complex endeavor that requires a wealth of resources. In part one of his feature, Jason Sparapani details exactly what is needed to build a private cloud. In part two, he investigates the challenges of creating and managing a private cloud.

There’s more cloud coverage where that came from: Are you ready to make the leap to private cloud, or do you already have one? Over on TotalCIO, Sparapani outlines the top considerations, starting with the varying definitions of private cloud. Then, he explores whether public or private cloud is cheaper and talks getting a handle on cloud ROI. Finally, he discusses the right time for big data in the cloud with a cloud expert.

On SearchCompliance, discover cybersecurity spending’s importance to the business and learn why it can be critical in helping companies ensure information is accurate and reliable. On the IT Compliance Advisor blog, Site Editor Fran Sales runs down the highlights of the FTC’s recent report on big data.

Please follow @SearchCIO, @SearchCIOSMB and @ITCompliance for our new stories throughout the week.

Fran Sales contributed to this blog post.