Infrastructure | Business Computing World

Aug 6th, 2010

A Good Theory

“Theoretical” is a dirty word at my current client. If an idea can’t be translated into immediate action, they’re not interested. Many organisations are like this. They like checklists of “best practices” that people can pick up and follow without too much thought. When developing systems, this mindset shows itself in the rush [...]

Jul 30th, 2010

Cloud Management Is The Key

The Cloud – fabulous idea, works well, we all get that. But what seems to be developing as the differentiator is managing the clients’ applications once they have decided to go cloud. There are three main offerings from companies in the UK. Firstly, niche players, who have the skills, but lack the ability to offer what [...]

Jul 27th, 2010

Fault Tolerant Hardware: No Fast Restarts, It Simply Keeps On Computing

I often wonder about the back-end infrastructure that supports new services which are likely to increase demand, as highlighted in this article about a new mobile billing service. It’s the last sentence though, that really summarises the article and, of course, it’s all about customer satisfaction. Whatever a great new service provides, the customer will only ever [...]

Jul 23rd, 2010

Cloud Computing: How To Minimise Lock-In Risks

Virtualising servers, purchasing space in data centres and utilising applications hosted and managed by third parties can have some undeniable advantages: they can increase efficiency, decrease IT-related costs, allow greater mobility and also represent a greener alternative for organisations. But as the popularity of cloud computing grows, so do concerns regarding the unclear implications of [...]

Jun 16th, 2010

Survey Reveals Levels Of Confidence And Changing Attitudes To IT

The UK’s recovery from recession is proving slow but steady going for small business owners, according to a survey conducted by ICM. More than a quarter (27 per cent) of UK small businesses say they are more confident now about their business than they were this time last year. Furthermore, 64 per cent of small businesses [...]

Apr 22nd, 2010

Using Cloud To Support Your Business

The fundamental promise of cloud is transformational: shifting from ad hoc, capital-intensive IT delivery methods to agile, pay-per-use service utilities, delivered over a network. Many businesses are already benefiting from reduced capital expenditure by maximising asset usage, resulting in a significant ROI. Expenditure can be further reduced by moving the control of some IT elements over [...]

Apr 15th, 2010

Ensuring Every Cloud Has A Secure Lining

Compared to traditional IT environments, software is no longer purchased and locally installed on a PC or server. Instead, customers that take the SaaS Route simply buy a license for a software service hosted on the server of the SaaS-vendor, a period determined by whether they elect for a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription. Given the [...]

Mar 25th, 2010

Third Of Organisations Lack IT Infrastructure To Meet Business Needs

A third of organisations do not have an integrated IT infrastructure that can deliver what the business needs according to a poll from my company. The majority of organisations (52%) have what they need for now, but only 15% have an IT infrastructure that is sufficiently flexible to meet their changing needs. The important challenge is [...]

Mar 23rd, 2010

Virtualising Network Security

The drive toward data centre virtualisation is raising important questions about network security. Which will be the operationally safer architecture – virtualised security with virtualised applications, or a hybrid model in which security is virtualised within its own cloud and physically separated from the applications? In order to maintain strong “trust boundaries,” Crossbeam recommends that network [...]

Feb 26th, 2010

Spying – The New Black?

Today I came across a very disturbing story by Mike Masnick at techdirt. Mike reports about a class action suit by some students who claim the school was monitoring them through the webcam from laptops they were issued by said school. The issue came to light after one student was disciplined [...]

Feb 26th, 2010

Super Computers: Too Big To Fail?

“Just beware the shiny new servers with outrageous resources. You may ultimately create a monster that is literally too big to fail,” concludes Mark Vaughn in his recent column High-performance computers: Too much of a good thing? in SearchServerVitualization . This article was music to my ears. Mark Vaughn has got it spot on when [...]

Feb 19th, 2010

Comments From Informatica’s Recent Analyst Conference

Last week I attended an Informatica analyst event. There was a lot to digest but here are some highlights. To begin with, the company talked about its acquisition of Siperian. I have already commented on this but one point that emerged at the conference was the way that Informatica describes Siperian as infrastructure MDM as opposed [...]

Feb 18th, 2010

BLADE Network Technologies Unveils Its Unified FabricArchitecture To Address Rapidly Growing Data Centre Requirements

BLADE Network Technologies, Inc. (BLADE), the trusted leader in data centre networking, today introduced its Unified FabricArchitecture (UFA) the industry’s fastest, smartest, most integrable and most proven fabric that will eliminate cost and complexity of deploying physical and virtual data centre infrastructure. BLADE posted record results in 2009 and expects even stronger performance in 2010 [...]

Jan 25th, 2010

Slow Recovery For UK And Irish IT Services Market

The guys with monstrous Excel files over at Ovum have dampened expectations of a quick recovery for the UK and Ireland’s IT services market by predicting real-term growth of less than 2% in 2010. According to the depressing forecasting model compiled by the global advisory and consulting firm, the UK&I market will not see pre-recessionary [...]

Jan 21st, 2010

Getting The Most Out Of Your IT – 7 Questions You Should Ask Your IT Service Provider

Never before has technology been so integral to the way we do business, providing the machines, tools, applications and services that we all need to run a successful company. Small to medium-sized businesses in particular are keen to take advantage of the latest technology trends, new applications and delivery models such as software-as-a-service – [...]

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