Articles

How to Detect and Stop Corporate Cyber Espionage

29 Nov 2011

You’ve spent months fixing the red items on an internal audit report and just passed a regulatory exam. You’ve performed a network vulnerability assessment and network pen test within the last year and have fixes in place. You’ve tightened up your information security policy and recently invested in a security information and event management (SIEM) solution. You’re secure, right?

Extending Test Automation to Mobile Apps

28 Nov 2011

In this day and age of instant-on gratification, mobile devices are gaining momentum. As with any emerging technology, a number of unique challenges can arise when developing and implementing mobile applications because compared to the desk top environment, mobile applications have their own user interface (UI) requirements, business process flows, and infrastructure dependencies. This coupled with the growing variety of mobile devices and operating systems can put increased strain on IT to build, port and maintain mobile applications and also heighten the risk of quality and performance problems.  

Modern IT Infrastructures Demand New Approach to Monitoring and Management

21 Nov 2011

In an era of tight spending, reduced profit expectations, rising utility costs and environmental concerns, enterprise computing infrastructures are now increasingly reliant upon outsourced managed service and hosting providers thanks to the growing sophistication of virtualisation, SaaS, and cloud computing. Together, these trends are marking the beginning of what some believe will be a move to the “all cloud enterprise”, an organisation that relies solely on externally hosted services for its computing infrastructure. Whether or not this vision turns out to hold true for most enterprises, there is no doubt that external SaaS and cloud offerings are here to stay, and will play increasingly important roles in how enterprises deliver and consume business applications in the years ahead. 

Outlook for 2012 - Data centre predictions

21 Nov 2011

Chris Smith, sales and marketing director, on365, a specialist in the planning, installing, management and optimisation of infrastructure and utility services, has identified the following key trends in the data centre industry for 2012, including new data centre monitoring tools, next stage equipment guidelines and some potential game-changing innovations by manufacturers and IT vendors.

Ten Vital steps for Successful Cloud Computing Implementation

18 Nov 2011

Costas Galonis, CTO of Cloud provider Cirrus Stratus, takes you through the ten steps to check off on your to-do list before committing to the Cloud. 

If you are wading through the sea of words which has been written about Cloud computing in the last few months you can be forgiven for being a little confused. Not only is Cloud computing a new concept, the literature about it is also weighed down with new ideas and words such as virtualization, multi-tenancy etc. Since Cloud computing is a new way of doing business you have to be clear about what you are letting yourself in for. For some, the business benefits of Cloud are many – for others it will be the simple fact that Cloud allows a small business to stop worrying about its IT - something that distracts from its core function of running the business

Telehouse: Providing the financial exchange hub for QuantHouse

18 Nov 2011

Established initially in 2000, as a quant/ algo hedge fund, developing proprietary technology and infrastructure, QuauntHouse is now the global leader in end-to-end systematic trading solutions. Created by a group of managers, IT experts and quant traders coming from the hedge fund community, QuantHouse’s technology has been designed for electronic trading aimed at the buy-side customer. The company has over 90 employees spread out across three offices in London, Paris and New York.

The vision of the company is to help financial firms to take the lead by providing ready-to-use systematic trading solutions.

Benefits of assembly-line techniques for data centres revealed in new Green Grid report

15 Nov 2011

Modular data centers offer cost savings and increased energy efficiency

Manufacturing techniques that are extensively applied in other industries are now rapidly maturing for the building and deployment of data centres, according to a new report from The Green Grid, the IT industry’s leading voice for advancing resource efficiency in data centres and business computing ecosystems. The Green Grid’s white paper, “Deploying and Using Containerized/Modular Data Centre Facilities,” reveals that pre-engineered and prefabricated data centres demonstrate technical and business value when properly applied.

Five steps to outsourcing your business IT functions to the cloud

14 Nov 2011

Outsourcing business IT operations to the cloud is a hot topic for companies at present. Many voices are extolling its virtues, with key benefits from cost reduction and increased business flexibility highlighted alongside the improved technological reliability associated with virtualised environments. 

Michel Robert, managing director, Claranet, states: “There is also, however, a current of concern coursing through IT departments, as questions are raised about the service levels, security and increased reliance on networks that an outsourced IT infrastructure will necessitate. So what practical steps should you take if you are considering outsourcing parts of your IT infrastructure from in-house physical servers to a remote, cloud environment? There are five key steps that a business should consider when putting together a business plan for moving to an outsourced cloud.”

Everything changes but stays the same

10 Nov 2011

Consumerisation, cloud computing and virtualisation are transforming corporate networks, but for IT professionals tasked with managing this change, the underlying challenges remain the same as when the personal computing revolution first got underway.

Ewen Anderson discusses why a well-known saying in France still rings true for IT professionals managing the new wave of IT transformation underway.

Many businesses are looking to refresh or transform their desktop environment by adopting utility computing and virtualisation. Advances in both the underlying technology and service quality means that organisations can now virtualise across the majority of the IT estate – i.e. the desktop (DaaS); the applications (SaaS); computing platform and/or solution stack (PaaS); and back-up, disaster recovery and storage (IaaS).  

Driving Down the Cost of Great Service

03 Nov 2011

Today’s field service organisations find themselves confronted by two seemingly conflicting goals: they are expected to systematically reduce the cost of their service operations whilst simultaneously responding to an increasingly demanding customer base. In short, they are expected to drive down the cost of great service.

Stoke Park - Case Study

03 Nov 2011

Stoke Park School & Community Technology College in Coventry is a mixed comprehensive inner city and multicultural school providing education primarily for students between the ages of 11 and 18. It is one of the most oversubscribed schools in the city and accomodates in excess of 1,000 pupils each year. Its infrastructure includes over 500 computers and 16 virtual servers that manage the school’s computing workload.

Online Social Networks – Launch pads for Malware

01 Nov 2011

With the advent of social networks, the online world has become a virtual society. Social networks serve as seamless communication channels, but at the same time they are ideal launch pads for malware infections. As a result there has been a tremendous increase in the dissemination of malware infections through social networks. The security and privacy mechanisms of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook have proven insufficient to prevent exploitation. As we know “To Err is Human,” and human errors lead to exploitation and manipulation whether the social network is online or offline.