This reportback has been sponsored by Dell Technologies

Despite the tearaway growth of the public cloud, the vast majority of organisations are still reliant on their own on-premise infrastructure. This is good news for vendors, and IDC says it expects the market to return to growth this year as infrastructure and operations teams gear up for a refresh cycle. As far as the modernisation mantra goes, business leaders are often reminded of the importance of investing in IT infrastructure that will meet the needs of the modern, digital business. This, so the thinking goes, is the advantage that will push an organisation ahead of its competitors. In practice, it’s a little more messy. Infrastructure teams are solely responsible for keeping ageing servers ticking, and in many cases, there simply isn’t the money for a shiny new piece of tin. There’s also the matter of applications, many of which that are so embedded that to move them will take a Herculean effort. Brainstorm, with Dell Technologies and Intel, convened a roundtable drawing on the knowledge of CIOs from the public and private sector to gauge how IT teams are faring in this balancing act.