LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook: Listening in on CIO, CTO Chat

• Cloud: No top-10 list about technology would be complete without including the cloud today. But, in the case of CIOs and CTOs and what they’re chatting about, there were a host of critical sub-topics that included managed services for the cloud, the rising importance of hybrid clouds, moving applications to the cloud, and the ongoing debate over private versus public clouds.

• Mobility: Gift-giving over the holidays included an array of techno-devices that will surely make their way into corporate environments. CIOs and CTOs, bracing for the influx of new gadgetry and the impact of that wide assortment of devices on corporate IT systems and security, were talking about mobility with increasing fervor toward the end of 2012, making the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement and its associated management and security issues top-of-mind among social media conversations.

• Security: There’s a reason the word security contains IT. From the impact of BYOD to the possibility of data loss due to superstorms and other disasters, CIOs and CTOs tasked with keeping their companies’ data secure – both physically and systematically – have had plenty to talk about.

• Vendor Management: Managing a data center is hard enough from a technical perspective, but the asset and contract management that necessarily goes with it adds burdens that IT execs are beginning to realize can be effectively outsourced.

• Big Data: When it comes to data-intensive operations, IT pros are faced with an array of challenges from meeting peak demands for computing horsepower to how to store all the data created.

• Social Media: Not only is social media a convenient way to tap into the thoughts and opinions of colleagues, but it’s also becoming “the world’s fastest, largest and most accurate focus group.”

• Data Center Efficiency: Running an efficient data center without unnecessary redundancies and wasted computing power is a top priority for IT pros today. Knowing this, Logicalis hosted a five-part series of discussions about data center efficiency with technology execs focused on key issues like data center optimization, cloud computing, sunsetting old IT assets, network rationalization, and managed services in late 2012.

• Innovation: Change is happening every day and a new normal has to be developed. With data centers at the heart of most corporations, CIOs and CTOs have to re-think end-user computing, modernize application development and evolve their infrastructure before the need for the services and solutions they’re creating even exists.

• Outsourcing: Two areas of surprise in this year’s study included the increase in discussions about vendor management and about outsourcing. Top IT pros are beginning to see the advantages of doing what makes them a specialist in house, and turning over the reins for more mundane tasks to an experienced third party’s managed services team, freeing both time and resources to focus on more strategic technology projects.

• Data Storage: As corporations rely increasingly more on their data and information, storage discussions among the technology experts supporting these companies naturally included everything from storage requirements to the solutions needed to meet those data management requirements.