School may have just let out, but some students are already snagging the tech they’ll need for next semester. According to the latest annual report by the American College Health Association, roughly 81% of students report extreme exhaustion from their first year of college. Thankfully, with the help of technology, we’ve found the ultimate gadgets to help melt […]
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Ever since Citrix announced the End-of-Life (EOL) of XenApp for August 2016, IT administrators have been under immense pressure to make their migration plans as soon as possible. XenApp v4.5 and v5 will be supported until the end of 2015, while v6 will be EOL in the next three years. To get support after the […]
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The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) has called on cloud service providers (CSPs) to do more to assist with the process of cloud migration for their customers after new research reveals difficulties associated with moving to the cloud.
The CIF survey, which polled 250 senior IT and business decision-makers from the public and private sectors, found only 10% of respondents saying their transition to cloud services “could not have been improved.” 38% of those polled said they had issues relating to the complexity of migration, while a further 30% had difficulties with data sovereignty.
The challenges don’t begin once migration is underway, either: more than a quarter (27%) said they had contractual obstacles from the start, such as clarity of liability. A similar number (28%) said they encountered a brief drop in employee productivity.
Previous research from the CIF has focused predominantly on the growth in cloud adoption. Yet this time around, cloud providers are urged to give more focus on their customers to aid their migration. Michel Robert, Claranet UK managing director, said: “In spite of the growing maturity of the delivery model, cloud migration issues haven’t gone away and are increasing along with adoption levels.
“The IT arrangements of many businesses, particularly those in the mid-market, are incredibly complex, and, increasingly, service providers need to take more of an active role in helping businesses to unpick them and devise migration strategies for their customers,” he added.
In May, the CIF argued the uptake of cloud computing services in business will increase due to the impending shutdown of Windows Server 2003 (WS2003) support, with CRM the most likely application to become cloud-based in the next 12 months. This migration path is long and twisted, as Nick East, CEO of hybrid cloud provider Zynstra, told this publication in April.
Alex Hilton, Cloud Industry Forum CEO, explained how customers should ask their service provider to have appropriate credentials, but equally should have sufficient knowledge on how cloud services can support their business objectives. Elsewhere, Oscar Arean, technical operations manager at Databarracks, argues the “slow” migration from WS2003 so far has been driven by caution, rather than complacency.
There’s no point in Googling the term ‘digital blurring’ because it doesn’t really exist. Except that it does… and we all have a pretty good idea of what it means.
The bad news is that there are several kinds of digital blurring going on. The good news is that they are all digital and so they are all characteristically of the same genus and species.
We see digital blurring currently distorting the boundaries between IT and the business function. As a result we find that firms are staring to create new ‘Chief Digital Officer’ roles in an attempt to provide a bridging point across the business to connect its otherwise potentially fragmenting parts.
The Open Group panel discusses what constitutes a good standard, or set of standards, and how organizations can work to better detect misdeeds.
How can global enterprise cybersecurity be improved for better enterprise integrity and risk mitigation? What constitutes a good standard, or set of standards, to help? And how can organizations work to better detect misdeeds, rather than have attackers on their networks for months before being discovered?
Business leadership is both science and art. The scientific aspects revolve around finance, organization, products and service. Artistic aspects include relationships, market trajectories and business strategies. While many focus on the science through books and training, the art of business is best learned from real practitioners. That is why I jumped at the chance to meet Dimension Data’s Steve Nola during the company’s analyst event, Perspectives 2015, in Prague, Czech Republic. Steve is the company’s ITaaS Group Executive and prior to this, served separate stints as Chief Executive Officer of the Cloud Business Unit and Dimension Data Australia region. Meeting over dinner, Steve shared his views on how businesses should deal with today’s dynamic information technology environment.
Many people recognize DevOps as an enormous benefit – faster application deployment, automated toolchains, support of more granular updates, better cooperation across groups. However, less appreciated is the journey enterprise IT groups need to make to achieve this outcome. The plain fact is that established IT processes reflect a very different set of goals: stability, infrequent change, hands-on administration, and alignment with ITIL. So how does an enterprise IT organization implement change to achieve DevOps outcomes?
Bernard Golden sat down with Andi Mann, VP in the Office of Strategic Solutions at CA Technologies to address this thorny problem in a recent Cloud Luminary Fireside Chat. Andi and Bernard discussed topics such as: How does DevOps get started – top-down or bottom-up? Who should lead a DevOps initiative – Dev or Ops? Common pitfalls encountered in DevOps initiatives, and other considerations.
I was recently in Boston at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, and with the long-awaited warm weather, all the street entertainers were in full force. Singers, musicians, and a variety of juggling acts filled the street, with crowds surrounding them. One act in particular struck a chord with me – the classic spinning plates. We’ve all seen it at various times in our lives. The entertainer started spinning plates, balanced precariously on top of wooden sticks. More and more plates started spinning with the entertainer frantically running back and forth as one started to slow down, almost fall, but, just in time, was able to get it spinning and balanced again. Then the entertainer reached his limit: he add one more plate and as he tried to keep them all up, one lone plate, down on the end started to wobble, the stick tilting, and before the entertainer could reach it, the plate went crashing to the ground, taking several of the other plates with it.
Microsoft is adding two cloud datacentres in Canada
Microsoft is opening two cloud datacentres in Canada, the company said this week. The facilities, one in Toronto, Ontario and one in Montreal, Quebec, will deliver Azure, Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics to local customers.
The company said the datacentres would help companies and organisation in highly regulated sectors like healthcare, the public sector, higher education and financial services overcome data storage and compliance regulations.
“Companies and organisations that have to adhere to data storage requirements and compliance standards can now take advantage of the advantages offered by Microsoft services here in Canada,” said Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner.
Turner said the announcement speaks to Microsoft’s “deep and growing commitment” to Canada and its public and private sector organisations.
“Now customers will be able to enjoy the benefits of all commercial cloud services on their terms across Canada.”
This is Microsoft’s first big cloud datacentre push since the company announced the launch of Azure in Australia last year. Lately, however, Microsoft has seemed more focused on bolstering its position through hybrid cloud, announcing Azure Stack – a series of updates and architectural changes (more microservices) to its server and cloud technologies aimed at blending the divide between Azure and Windows Server.
SYS-CON Events announced today that the “First Containers & Microservices Conference” will take place June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City. The “Second Containers & Microservices Conference” will take place November 3-5, 2015, at Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA.
Containers and microservices have become topics of intense interest throughout the cloud developer and enterprise IT communities.