Cloud Computing

IT Business Edge – Digital Transformation Starts with Infrastructure

Business models around the world are rapidly shifting from selling products to monetizing services. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, if you are not generating revenue by digitally connecting to consumers, the future of your enterprise is in doubt.

While this digital transformation requires new approaches to organizational structures, workforce skillsets, business processes and customer relationships, it all starts with infrastructure. Static, silo-laden data systems are out; agile, software-defined architectures are in.

But how, exactly, are traditional enterprises supposed to implement such a radical upgrade in time to ward off competition from digitally driven upstarts who are unburdened by legacy infrastructure? To be sure, it will take a concerted effort, and a clearly defined strategy as to how digital transformation can be optimized for the enterprise’s unique market strengths.

More of the IT Business Edge post from Arthur Cole

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26
Oct 16

Baseline – Mobility is at the Center of Digital Business

Mobile 2.0 has arrived, so organizations must develop an enterprise mobile strategy that extends beyond smartphones and tablets and into the IoT.

Only a few years ago, a mobile strategy focused mostly on arming workers with phones and laptops that would allow them to call the office and work remotely from home or while on the road. File sharing was difficult, collaboration was challenging, and staying in sync as an organization was next to impossible.

However, as enterprise mobile technology has advanced and clouds have made data more accessible, organizations are learning that basic communication and collaboration, while vitally important, are only part of the picture.

“As mobile devices have evolved into powerful computers and the definition of mobility has expanded, organizations are recognizing that mobile is now at the center of a successful business strategy,” observes Abhijit Kabra, managing director at Accenture Mobility, part of consulting firm Accenture.

More of the Baseline article from Samuel Greengard

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20
Oct 16

The Register – Internet of Things will turn up the compute heat for data centres

IPExpo The Internet of Things will put more demand upon mid-range and co-lo data centres, according to the marketing manager of data centre kit firm Minkels.

Speaking at London’s IPExpo conference this morning, Minkels’ Niek van der Pas explained how, in his view, the explosion of IoT device usage will push more and more workloads into smaller data centres.

Highlighting how IoT devices, by necessity, spend their time talking to what he called the “edge layer”, comprising “metro/local” data centres – as opposed to core layer “public cloud and hyperscale” data centres – Van der Pas said the main effect of this is going to be to scale up the age-old problems of cooling and power demands.

Two graphs on one of his slides illustrated the problem. LINX handles just under 3Tbps of internet traffic at 9pm. While the graph showed the usual peaks and troughs during the day, a similar graph showing power drawn by LINX was almost flat.

More of The Register post from Gareth Corfield

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19
Oct 16

SearchCloudComputing – Optimize your enterprise network design for hybrid cloud

Public and hybrid cloud adoption has a major ripple effect on enterprise network design. New bottlenecks arise, and some businesses need to alter their network configurations — particularly those for wide area networks — to ensure they get the performance they need.

With hybrid and public clouds, in particular, the networking focus shifts heavily to wide area network (WAN) connections. Businesses need to link their data centers to their public cloud provider’s sites, and often rely on their existing internet lines to do so. But this approach has shortcomings.

First, bandwidth is an issue. Traffic that used to roam about the data center now needs to move off-site, often increasing WAN traffic. Consequently, organizations may need to upgrade their internet lines, which can be expensive; pricing depends on a business’ location and amount of bandwidth needed.

More of the SearchCloudComputing article from Paul Korzeniowski

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18
Oct 16

Continuity Central – Many organizations mistakenly leaving cloud business continuity to third-party cloud providers

According to new research published by CTERA Networks, while enterprises continue to migrate workloads to the cloud at a rapid pace, protection of cloud-based servers and applications has not fully evolved to meet enterprise requirements for business continuity and data availability.

CTERA’s new eBook, ‘Game of Clouds’, showcases the findings of CTERA’s inaugural cloud backup survey, and presents a deep look at the state of enterprise cloud data protection. A CTERA-commissioned study was conducted by independent research firm Vanson Bourne to examine the data protection strategies of 400 IT decision makers and IT specialists in organizations using the cloud for application deployment at US, German and French organizations. The study analyzes the benefits and pitfalls of current backup strategies, offers key considerations for organizations moving to the cloud, and looks at the impact of poor backup practices on business continuity.

CIO Insight – Why Adaptability Is Critical for State CIOs

To keep up with tech shifts and changing business demands, today’s state government CIOs must constantly redefine the way they manage a wide range of IT systems and applications, according to a recent survey from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), Grant Thornton LLP and CompTIA. The accompanying report, titled “The Adaptable State CIO,” indicates that most state CIOs, for example, are moving toward outsourcing, managed services and shared services models for IT infrastructure and operations. Most are exploring or adopting agile software development approaches. They’re also looking to modernize the wealth of legacy systems that account for a substantial portion of their overall tech portfolio. In addition, many are focusing on ongoing innovations in mobility and the internet of things (IoT). In other words, our nation’s state CIOs face very similar challenges—and opportunities—as those in private industry. “(State government) CIOs are adapting to changing circumstances and expectations,” according to the report. “This requires agility to respond quickly to the unexpected, but also the strategic vision to anticipate and to plan for a future that cannot be easily predicted.

More of the CIO Insight slide show from Dennis McCafferty

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11
Oct 16

The Register – Inside the Box thinking: People want software for the public cloud

Analysis On-premises file sync and share and collaboration is yesterday’s story. The future is the public cloud with dedicated software service suppliers, like Box.

File sync, share and collaboration is not a feature, but a product, best expressed as a service (SaaS) through Box’s three data centres and the public cloud, and not subsumed into part of an on-premises storage array offering. The company says it is now a content platform for the modern enterprise.

That’s the Box message and it’s working, though not dramatically, given that Box is growing and increasing its services.

Box has grown its base service with specific offerings for, for example, IBM, Salesforce, Microsoft Office, and Google Android for Work. It has also announced its Box Platform, an open API set for authentication, user management and content access.

More of The Register post from Chris Mellor

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10
Oct 16

ZDNet – Is the IT budget ready to power digital transformation? The journeys of four CIOs

The digital transformation is upon us, with many CIOs expected to lead the charge. These technology leaders must determine how much of next year’s budget will drive internal and external innovation to meet staff and customer needs — and we’ve found a wide variety in investment levels across different industries.

While 72 percent of CXOs report that it is ‘critical’ or ‘very important’ for an organization to turn to a digital business model, only 15 percent said their company is agile enough to build such a system, according to an August survey from Unisys and IDG Research.

Another recent study found that 52 percent of companies surveyed looked to their CIO and CTO to lead their organization’s digital transformation, but only half said they actually had a business-wide digital transformation strategy.

More of the ZDNet post from Alison DeNisco

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06
Oct 16

AFCOM – Dissecting the Data Center: What Can – and Can’t – Be Moved to the Cloud

Practical approaches on cloud migration from the AFCOM folks. Re-platforming is a great opportunity for the move, but there are others as well, including staff changes, entering new lines of business, and financial drivers.

According to the results of a recent survey of IT professionals, 43 percent of organizations estimate half or more of their IT infrastructure will be in the cloud in the next three to five years. The race to the cloud is picking up steam, but all too often companies begin implementing hybrid IT environments without first considering which workloads make the most sense for which environments.

The bottom line is your business’s decision to migrate workloads and/or applications to the cloud should not be arbitrary. So how do you decide what goes where?

The best time to consider migrating to the cloud is when it’s time to re-platform an application. You should not need to over-engineer any application or workload to fit the cloud. If it’s not broken, why move it? For the purposes of this piece, let’s assume your organization is in the process of re-platforming a number of applications and you are now deciding whether to take advantage of the cloud for these applications. There are a few primary considerations you should think through to determine if moving to the cloud or remaining on-premises is best.

Evaluating What Belongs on the Ground or in the Cloud

First, ask yourself: Is our application or workload self-contained or does it have multiple dependencies? Something like the company blog would be considered a self-contained workload that can easily be migrated to the cloud. At the other extreme, an in-house CRM, for example, requires connectivity to your ERP system and other co-dependent systems. Moving this workload to the cloud would introduce more risk in terms of latency and things that could go wrong.

More of the AFCOM article from Gerardo Dada

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04
Oct 16

Continuity Central – The IT DR program: a crucial, but not well understood, aspect of disaster recovery

This is the shortest, most complete treatment I’ve ever seen of what it takes to be successful with IT Disaster Recovery. Worth the read.

While the hardware and software costs for disaster recovery are well understood many organizations do not fully realize that, in order to be assured of successfully executing the plan in the event of an outage or disaster, a comprehensive IT DR program must first be in place. An organization can have all the right IT DR hardware and software, but without a properly managed program, its efforts will fail.

Even the organizations that do have this understanding often underestimate the complexities involved in creating an IT DR program and the associated costs.

The DR program consists of the people, processes and tools necessary to implement the IT DR solution and manage its lifecycle. Because this implementation process requires considerable expertise and experience, organizations must carefully consider the costs of developing their in-house skill sets as well as those of purchasing, implementing, and maintaining their own hardware and software in house. They should then compare this expertise and the hardware and software costs to those they could access by going to a third-party managed recovery provider that specializes in providing IT disaster recovery services.

Only by understanding what goes into a full IT DR program and the complete total cost of ownership (TCO) of both an in-house versus a ‘selectively outsourced’ solution can organizations make the right choice.

The DR program consists of five processes: application mapping; developing disaster recovery procedures; test planning and execution; post-test analysis; and recovery lifecycle management. The discussion below will address what each step involves.

Doug Theis Leave your comfort zone.