American Businesses Lead The Way

In the Americas, the number of aging and obsolete devices plunged by more than half, from 60 percent in last year's report to 29 percent.

Dimension Data tied that to an increase in spending that followed four years of financial constraints. In a statement, Andre van Schalkwyk, senior practice manager of network consulting for Dimension Data, said clients in the Americas appear to be refreshing networks with the new generation of programmable infrastructure.

Meanwhile, organizations' networks in Australia, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region got a little younger, while those in the Middle East and Africa went the other way, up from 52 percent to 61 percent.

Data Dimension said that refreshes in Asia-Pacific and Australia occurred as part of data center network redesigns.