Articles

There’s a Bounty on your Applications

29 Nov 2010

Can you afford to wait for hackers to find flaws in your security defences?

In the last year there have been a number of organisations offering rewards, or ‘bounty’ programs, for discovering and reporting bugs in applications. Mozilla currently offers up to $3,000 for crucial or high bug identification, Google pays out $1,337 for flaws in its software and Deutsche Post is currently sifting through applications from ‘ethical’ hackers to approve teams who will go head to head and compete for its Security Cup in October. The winning team can hold aloft the trophy if they find vulnerabilities in its new online secure messaging service – that’s comforting to current users. So, are these incentives the best way to make sure your applications are secure?

Data Center Transformation

29 Nov 2010

Data centers today are undergoing a dramatic shift in terms of the design objectives, technology options and configurations, and functional requirements. The combination of increasing service and availability requirements, continued data growth, and capacity constraints is placing substantial pressure on organizations to adopt new approaches to accommodate current and future business needs.

Why education is required to win the data centre temperature debate

25 Nov 2010

In 2010, the energy consumption of the data centre industry has continued to climb the political and financial agendas. Tightened budgets mean that companies around the world are looking to reduce energy costs, while the regulatory environment is evolving to a state whereby heavy emitters could be penalised financially.

Do GB consumers & UK businesses understand the real cost of the data carbon footprint?

24 Nov 2010

Survey of 1,000 GB consumers & 100 CIOs/data centre mangers at UK enterprises.  

Research conducted by TNS & Vanson Bourne on behalf of nlyte Software

10 CRM Lessons from 2010

24 Nov 2010

Having a more sophisticated approach to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is fundamental to a businesses' sustainability and progress. It not only prioritises the importance of the end-user in the supply chain; it ensures complete visibility and control of the management processes needed to address customers’ needs efficiently and accurately. Paul Elswood of CDC Software, MD, CDC Software UK & Ireland describes his top 10 CRM lessons which have been learnt from 2010 and how to move forward in 2011.

How to incorporate cloud computing into your BC plan

23 Nov 2010

The term ‘cloud computing’ has been widely adopted by the technology industry to describe any on-demand services provided via the internet. It has had a drastic impact on businesses and the technology channel. 

As we begin to emerge from the hype around ‘cloud computing’ many businesses are seeing it with more clarity and are focusing on how the cloud will fit into their existing infrastructure, services and solutions.  Cloud can be used as a way of accessing a wide variety of services from security, data backup and storage to IT infrastructure, enterprise applications and business continuity.

Many organisations are still nervous about offering cloud services but in these new lean times, the allure of being able to pay as you go is gaining traction. Cloud solutions should be no different to standard solutions.

Experts predict cloud-based crack of SHA-1 passwords is a taste of things to come

18 Nov 2010

Reports that a German hacker has successfully cracked a secure hashing algorithm (SHA-1) password using a pay-as-you-use cloud computing based parallel processing environment is very worrying, says Credant Technologies.

Data Center E-Book

18 Nov 2010

Deploying, Managing and Securing an Efficient Physical Infrastructure

This white paper covers key 10 Gigabit Ethernet drivers, current need and future adoption expectations, Intel’s paper lays out 10Gb/s cabling media and architecture options, including a comparative look at backwards compatibility, power consumption, latency and cost. 

Oracle Cloud Computing

15 Nov 2010

Cloud computing is a significant advancement in the delivery of information technology and services. By providing on demand access to a shared pool of computing resources in a self-service, dynamically scaled and metered manner,  cloud computing offers compelling advantages in speed, agility and efficiency. Today, cloud computing is at an early stage in its lifecycle, but it is also the evolution and convergence of several trends that have been driving enterprise data centers and service providers overthe last several years.

If you ignore it, it won’t go away...

05 Nov 2010

The deadline to register for the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme may have only just passed, but many companies left it until the last minute, no doubt hoping that it, like the Housing Information Packs, would just disappear when the government does yet another policy ‘U-turn’.  Despite the swathing cuts to public services and Quangos, the CRC is still in force, albeit all pretence of it being neutral has been removed and it is now simply a ‘green’ tax.  High tech industries, especially the data centre sector, are going to have to get up to speed on the scheme very quickly in order to minimise any losses as a result of it.

Cabinet Power Monitoring, Management & Control Within the Data Center

05 Nov 2010

Increased cabinet densities combined with reduced power availability and greatly increasing power costs are driving power monitoring and management solutions within the Data Center. Only through power monitoring, management and control can greater efficiencies be achieved with the key being “You cannot improve what you are not measuring.” As groups like The Green Grid advocate continuous power monitoring at the device level, most IT and Infrastructure Managers are struggling with not only making these measurements, but also what to do with the information.

J.R. Simplot Data Center Refurbishment

05 Nov 2010

As part of a data center refurbishment, the J.R. Simplot data center management team wanted to improve energy efficiency to meet corporate green initiatives. They also wanted to increase IT rack density, be better able to troubleshoot equipment and put in systems to manage potential risks. 

Desktop Virtualization: Concept Becomes Reality with Quest

01 Nov 2010

CIOs and senior IT management are tuning their focus to desktop virtualization as they look for new ways to enhance their desktop strategy with simultaneous benefits to the end-user and IT operations. VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) has been the industry buzz word and may be the right fit for certain scenarios, but successful desktop virtualization implementations view VDI as one of many deployment models.