Survey: New IT Means New Complexity

New technologies can do many things, including increasing the complexity of government organizations.

A new survey suggests 50 percent of public-sector employees believe new technologies like cloud computing and virtualization are adding complexity to their organizations, particularly when those organizations are cash strapped and anchored by hard-to-replace legacy technology.

“New IT paradigms are adding to complexity, and one of the things we found is that it’s harder to have that insight and holistic visibility,” said Ashok Sankar, director of solutions strategy, public sector and higher education at Splunk, in an interview with Nextgov.

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Splunk underwrote the survey, which was carried out by Clarus Research Group and polled 634 IT professionals at the local, state and federal level. 

More than 70 percent of the IT professionals surveyed said they want better insight into their organization or agency, suggesting that piggybacking new technologies onto old systems is sometimes problematic.

Budget remains the biggest challenge among top IT executives, with 45 percent unable to manage IT operations to the degree they want to because they lack funding. However, budget was the least challenging for IT execs at the federal level, followed by those in state, local and education. 

For more information, check out the survey.