IT Strategy

Azure Stack / CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Cloud infrastructure / Disaster Recovery / IT Security / IT Strategy / Virtualization — Comments Off
24
Nov 17

The Register – VMware refuses to support its wares running in Azure

VMware has responded to Microsoft’s plan to run its stack in Azure, by saying customers who choose that option will have to forego support.

“This offering has been developed independent of VMware, and is neither certified nor supported by VMware,” wrote Virtzilla’s senior veep for product development and cloud services Ajay Patel.” Patel added that no VMware partners have collaborated with the company to build Microsoft’s offering.

VMware’s reason for denying support was explained on the basis that standing up a VMware-based cloud service needs a lot of careful work ~~one does not simply walk into Mordor~~.

“Our experience has shown public cloud environments require significant joint engineering to run enterprise workloads,” Patel wrote, later charactering VMware-on-AWS as a “a jointly architected, and fully tested and validated cloud service”

More of The Register article from Simon Sharwood

CIO Strategy / Digital Transformation / IT Strategy — Comments Off
10
Nov 17

IT Business Edge – Getting on the Right Side of Automation

It’s a fait accompli at this point that the enterprise will become significantly more automated over the next decade, both in terms of IT operations and infrastructure management. And while this will most certainly affect the knowledge workforce, and probably cost jobs, it will also bring about a higher level of data productivity that will ultimately enhance the value of both human and technological resources.

Automation works best when it is directed at the rote, repetitive tasks that occupy the majority of the knowledge worker’s time. This can include everything from system mapping and resource provisioning to data tracking and analysis. If there is one thing that the current crop of automation solutions excels at, it is taking over these mindless operations to allow humans to concentrate on the more creative aspects of fulfilling the business model.

More of the IT Business Edge article from Arthur Cole

Business continuity / CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Cloud infrastructure / IaaS / IT Strategy / Uncategorized — Comments Off
07
Nov 17

ZDNet – SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS: Understand the differences

Understanding the cloud is critical to the future of business. Here’s a brief explanation of the three layers by which cloud services are delivered.

Cloud computing is one technology moving faster than almost all others toward becoming table stakes in enterprise IT. In 2017 alone, the public cloud services market is predicted to grow 18 percent, hitting a value of $246.8 billion, according to research firm Gartner.

Understanding the cloud can help business leaders make more strategic investments and remain competitive going forward. Cloud clarity starts with understanding the model itself.

As a service
According to 451 Research analyst Carl Brooks, for a technology solution to qualify as “as a Service,” it has to meet the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) definition parameters, which he paraphrased as “self-service, paid on-demand, elastic, scalable, programmatically accessible (APIs), and available over the network.”

More of the ZDNet article from Conner Forest

CIO Strategy / Get Better / IT Staff Retention / IT Strategy — Comments Off
06
Nov 17

Fast Company – This Is Why We Default To Criticism (And How To Change)

“Susan doesn’t pull her weight. She’s always negative, people don’t like her.”

“Robert is just incompetent. Why am I asked to do my job well when he gets to skate by?”

“This department would be better off if Beth was fired, everyone knows it, what are you going to do about it?”

Tim Cole, now founder and CEO of The Compass Alliance, used to hear criticism like this regularly in a previous work environment. Tasked with taking over a department he admits had a “septic culture,” Cole stepped into a quagmire of low morale. There was legitimate debate on shutting the operation down,” he explains, “despite the contribution to profitability.”

More of the Fast Company article from Lydia Dishman

CIO Strategy / IT Staff Retention / IT Strategy — Comments Off
03
Nov 17

ZDNet – How to turn down bad IT ideas at work – without upsetting your colleagues

Modern CIOs hear an awful lot about the importance of engagement, but partnerships are a two-way street. Sometimes you need to tell people — whether that’s someone on your team, a line-of-business peer, or your boss — that their idea won’t work. What’s the best way to tell people they’re wrong? ZDNet hears from five CIOs.

1. Let people know quickly and remain open to new ideas
Juan Perez, CIO at UPS, says executives must tell people when they’re wrong, regardless of level. At the same time, Perez says relaying this information is a sensitive task. “The worst thing that can happen is that you come across as someone that is not respecting and valuing their opinions and views,” he says.

More of the ZDNet article from Mark Samuels

CIO Strategy / IT Staff Retention / IT Strategy / Technical Debt — Comments Off
02
Nov 17

Fast Company – Survey: one in four IT workers are worried that their skills could become obsolete

For the most part, IT workers like their jobs: 79% claim they are satisfied with their positions (up from 73% in 2015) and a whopping 45% are “very satisfied,” according to the new industry report “Evaluating IT Workforce Needs.” However, there is one looming concern among these workers. One in four are worried that their skills could become obsolete, which probably includes anyone who fears automation (read: everyone) and anyone working in programming languages like Visual Basic, Flash, or even Ruby.

Continuity Central – PwC survey highlights massive corporate planning failures when it comes to cyber security

44 percent of the 9,500 executives in 122 countries surveyed say they do not have an overall information security strategy; 48 percent do not have an employee security awareness training programme, and 54 percent don’t have an incident response process.

PwC has published its 2018 Global State of Information Security Survey (GSISS).

Executives worldwide acknowledge the increasingly high stakes of cyber insecurity. 40 percent of survey respondents cite the disruption of operations as the biggest consequence of a cyber attack; 39 percent cite the compromise of sensitive data; 32 percent cite harm to product quality, and 22 percent cite threat to human life.

Yet despite this awareness, many companies at risk of cyber attacks remain unprepared to deal with them. 44 percent say they do not have an overall information security strategy. 48 percent say they do not have an employee security awareness training programme, and 54 percent say they do not have an incident response process.

Continuity Central – Future business continuity: how technology and strategy improvements will impact the profession

The business world is facing a period of rapid change with various emerging technologies, especially artificial intelligence and machine learning, expected to fundamentally change the structure of organizations and society. How might these developments impact the business continuity profession? Charles Boffin makes some suggestions…

Everyone agrees that business continuity will be changing over the next few years and into the foreseeable future; but, as with any other changing landscape, the future is never a specific of finely shaped object: it is a vision. For business continuity, the end vision is a fully resilient environment which means that things don’t fail and, if they do, they are resolved immediately with no loss of service. This general view of the future of our profession is fine as we build our technological credentials and capabilities, but there are three prime movers involved, and each requires a different response:

1. External factors that can be forecasted

This covers issues such bad weather, demonstrations and civil unrest, economic factors, viruses (human!) and other aspects where we can see events unfolding or likely to happen in a given place. In these cases, responses can be planned and contingencies created.

HBR – How to Spot a Machine Learning Opportunity, Even If You Aren’t a Data Scientist

Artificial intelligence is no longer just a niche subfield of computer science. Tech giants have been using AI for years: Machine learning algorithms power Amazon product recommendations, Google Maps, and the content that Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter display in social media feeds. But William Gibson’s adage applies well to AI adoption: The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.

The average company faces many challenges in getting started with machine learning, including a shortage of data scientists. But just as important is a shortage of executives and nontechnical employees able to spot AI opportunities. And spotting those opportunities doesn’t require a PhD in statistics or even the ability to write code. (It will, spoiler alert, require a brief trip back to high school algebra.)

More of the Harvard Business Review article from Kathryn Hume

Doug Theis Leave your comfort zone.