Gartner: IT Leaders Not Ready to Handle Growth of Mobile App Data

A new report reveals to IT leaders that they might not be ready to handle the large amounts of data being generated by consumer-centric mobile apps. The trend is something that may be on some managed service providers’ radar as they look to support companies that collect data from such apps.

According to IT research firm Gartner, Inc. (IT), “most mobile apps will sync, collect and analyze deep data about users and their social graphs” by 2015, potentially making things a little bit more difficult on IT admins who are in charge of managing information infrastructures for customers.

In the report, titled “Adapt Your Information Infrastructure in the Age of Consumer-Centric Mobile Apps,” Gartner states that “most applications have been developed to support specific business-to-consumer interactions.”

“Personal data is often collected solely in support of a mobile app’s requirements and not considered an asset within an organization’s overall information infrastructure,” Gartner Research Director Roxane Edjlali said in a statement.

She continued: “Consequently, although this data is accessed and potentially stored in support of an app, it is not managed as a full ‘citizen’ of an enterprise’s information infrastructure.”

To overcome challenges associated with mobile apps collecting more and more data, Gartner suggests that IT leaders begin to manage this data as part of an organization’s information infrastructure.

“Organizations should plan to manage information across cloud and on-premises implementations, as combining all data on the premises or on a single repository is no longer viable,” Edjlali said. “It is important to understand the service-level agreements (SLAs) for various use cases that access mobile app data, and adapt the information capability accordingly.”

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