Articles

Consigned to History by the Smartphone

17 May 2012

It might seem hard to believe but the mobile phone was first introduced to the UK in 1985. Just twenty seven years later and the device that we now love is hardly recognisable to those first Motorola handsets. And it’s not just the size and battery life that’s changed. Let’s face it, if you were to upgrade your handset tomorrow, would you just be looking for one that can make calls!

Don’t Believe the Spin – Why Tape is Best for Archiving

16 May 2012

When it comes to creating the best long-term storage solution for data, one of the most important considerations is which medium to use; tape or spinning disk? Many suggest that spinning disk is the way forward. However, data tape has many benefits for long-term data storage, in particular Linear Tape Open (LTO) technology and the Linear Tape File System (LTFS) format.

The Hype around Big Data – What’s it all about?

16 May 2012

Why is everyone so hyped over Big Data?

Possibly it’s because people are now realizing the power of Big Data.

The security industry has realized that log data is an incredibly rich source of information for detecting security intrusions, and has since developed a taste for more and more logs.

To BYOD or not to BYOD – that is the question!

10 May 2012

There are currently two main schools of thought in the industry concerning BYOD – one convinced that it is the way forward across the enterprise, and the other forecasting that BYOD is perhaps not so much of a good thing as we once thought. Manish Sablok, Head of Marketing for CNE Europe at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, explains that the technology is there for CIOs to choose a pragmatic deployment strategy with due diligence and 360 degree assessment in order to pace their adoption of BYOD, based on business needs and user roles.

The Genesis of Privileged Identity - The Creation and Evolution of The Superuser

09 May 2012

When I think about managing identities and privileges within an organisation, one of my favorite analogies for the whole privileged identity lifecycle is biblical. Everything starts 'in the beginning' with a super user. Whether someone starts with a server or a workstation, creates on-premise solutions for their network infrastructure or builds out a cloud, they'll always have to start out with an account with god-like power that will control all other accounts accessing that resource going forward in the future.

SAN Storage ensures high availability and delivers virtualisation platform for North East secondary school

03 May 2012

Aegis IT works with Framwellgate School Durham and installs Huawei technology to deliver a future-proofed storage solution

Framwellgate School Durham located just outside of the historic city of Durham in the North East of England is a science and sixth form college for 11-18 year olds. At that time they were running two standalone ESXi servers on existing shared storage with 6 SATA disks.

Node4 helps Provident Financial set up new home for data

03 May 2012

With Provident Financial growing and moving into new headquarters, Node4 helped them to outsource their data centre while maintaining control.

The Death of Excel

03 May 2012

Regardless of the stated advantages around quality, functionality and stability, most technology innovations never see widespread adoption for one reason: end users’ resistance to change. A recent study of Fortune 500 companies showed that nearly two-thirds of all major changes in organisations fail due to resistance¹. Despite an industry shift that has seen data become a valuable asset to most organisations, data analytics and business insight still occur on the desktop with Microsoft Excel. Excel is the workhorse of data analytics and we are faithful to it, no matter what compromises on speed, ease of use or scalability it forces us to make.

Web monitoring and blocking will only infuriate LulzSec and similar groups

02 May 2012

With the recent government proposals to block websites (The Pirate Bay) and monitor emails, web browsing, phone calls, text messages and VOIP, it raises a whole host of questions that need addressing. Not only will it infuriate groups such as LulzSec, Anonymous and TeaMp0isoN it will also encourage individuals to go more underground by using increasingly enhanced countermeasures.

Assessing the "Insider Threat"

27 Apr 2012

BeyondTrust recently conducted a survey among security managers across the EMEA region, to assess current attitudes towards the "insider threat" and what strategies organisations have put in place to mitigate security breaches and data loss.

Trace Solutions - Case Study

25 Apr 2012

Trace Solutions is one of the leading lights in the provision of automated property management software systems to the UK commercial property market. Driven by innovation, Trace Solutions produces software and systems specific to the needs of managing agents, investors and occupiers. The company operates out of offices in London serving 200 clients. Trace Solutions software is used to manage iconic buildings such as City Tower in Manchester and Fort Dunlop in the Midlands. Trace Solutions is part of the Trace Group, a leading provider of business IT solutions.

Data centres: the problem of fire safety

23 Apr 2012

As with other aspects of a company’s operating infrastructure, the IT environment places particular demands on a fire safety system. A data centre or IT suite, for example, will contain servers and other computer equipment which would be costly to replace in the event of a fire. Yet of even greater value is the mission-critical data stored on that equipment, which may put the firm’s very existence at risk if damaged or destroyed.

Operators face super pressures from superphones

11 Apr 2012

Driven by a wealth of new smartphones, apps and services, consumer demand for mobile data is continuing to accelerate. With mobile users consuming a widening array of media on their devices, from games to social networking to movies, while demanding quicker, uninterrupted online access, greater strain is being placed on the underlying network infrastructure.  The introduction of a new generation of devices – the ‘Superphone’ – will drive an unprecedented volume of bandwidth on the network and pose a significant challenge for network operators. 

Energising the European Economy One Step at a Time

05 Apr 2012

Europe is currently facing one of its most challenging economic times in half a century. European Governments cut spending and European businesses need to cut costs, while at the same time remain competitive and innovative to generate the growth necessary for economic recovery. 

The true cost of internet security in the workplace

04 Apr 2012

When it comes to Internet access in the workplace the main concerns for most organisations are still the cost of that access, the connection speed and its reliability. However the bigger and more dangerous issues are of course the security threat the connection poses to the business, what it’s being used for as well as when and where employees are actually accessing it.

Tiering in RAID Storage Environments

02 Apr 2012

With the advent of solid-state-disk technology, shrinking costs of high speed volatile memory, the low cost of SATA, and the reliability of SAS, optimal organisation and integration of new storage technologies has become more difficult. Opportunities exist to place frequently accessed “hot” data on lower latency, faster media, while leaving rarely accessed data on higher latency, lower cost media. 

Five Easy Steps To Enhance the Security of Mobile Device Use

02 Apr 2012

Mobile devices are quickly becoming a target rich and high return on investment environment for malicious attackers. Their use is expected to surpass the use of existing laptops and desktop computers by a factor of at least three in the next five years. The rapid innovation that is often associated with these devices also means that in the near future they are expected to have expanded capabilities, including touch less payments, personal data repositories, fully functional local applications, and the ability to simultaneously enable high-speed access to corporate and personal networks and applications. There are numerous behaviors and capabilities that users can adopt to help them mitigate risks and enhance the security of mobile devices without introducing debilitating restrictions or limiting functionality that make them less useful. This article will discuss five of the more useful ones.

An ethical hackers view on the dangers of mobile malware and what steps to take to stop it

30 Mar 2012

The mobile phone is unrecognisable in comparison to its original ‘brick’ form of the 80s. Instead of a ‘yuppie’ status symbol, now it’s considered by many as a necessity with practically every handbag and pocket hiding these modern miracles of technology. While battery life used to be considered the key feature, today it’s a heady mix of memory capacity, browser speeds, megapixels, touch screen quality, HD ability, playback, sleek design and available apps. Hardly anyone thinks about how secure the device is when making that all important decision between Apple, Blackberry or Android.

Software that can make you sink or swim...

27 Mar 2012

Software to many is not imperative when it comes to organising a big event; other things come first, be it the agenda, on-site security or catering for attendees. However, what many don’t realise is that software is very much a part of all of these things – and has the power to derail big and small occasions to an overwhelming extent if attention is not paid to it. 

IT security lessons that Australia can teach us

20 Mar 2012

Paul Kenyon, COO of Avecto, on how the Australian Defence Signals Directorate could teach IT security professionals a thing or two when it comes to operating system and application whitelisting plus privilege controls………

The Australian economy - under the respected guidance of its 27th Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her federal team - is carving out a name for itself in the IT security arena.

Threat Intelligence: What to Share?

19 Mar 2012

Year after year, I hear the same refrain in information security: "We need to share more data about security threats.” I know I've been singing the same song myself for at least a decade, too.

Penn Foster - Case Study

16 Mar 2012

Penn Foster has been a pioneer and leader in helping students achieve their higher education goals for more than 28 years through college and graduate school test preparation and private tutoring. Penn Foster is one of the world's leading providers of accredited distance education.

MTI Delivers New Offerings, Improved Service Levels with Nimsoft - Case Study

14 Mar 2012

Founded over 20 years ago, MTI is a trusted expert in the provisioning of information infrastructure solutions. MTI works with more than 1,200 clients across EMEA, from global enterprises to local specialist businesses. The company’s 120 employees successfully support more than 2,000 installations. MTI delivers storage, computing, virtualisation, cloud, networking and data centre solutions and services from its locations in the UK, Germany and France.

The RSA Security breach – 12 months down the technology turnpike

14 Mar 2012

It’s been 12 months since the security world woke to the horror that RSA Security’s systems had been compromised and – as the company has reluctantly confirmed – its many tens of millions of SecurID hardware tokens would have to be re-issued to clients. Andy Kemshall, CTO of SecurEnvoy, reviews the IT security fiasco and what could have been done to prevent the fallout…

Shifting IT Spend from Maintenance to Innovation: Measuring Success against KPIs

08 Mar 2012

IT is one of the most strategic investments a company can make; ironically it is also one of the least understood by executive management and the board of directors. With billions already being directed to IT annually, CIOs must be better prepared to manage and defend their requests for funding, or provide proof that they can manage costs and increase the value of previous investments.

CooperVision - Case Study

08 Mar 2012

One of the world’s largest manufacturers of contact lenses faces the challenge of managing a highly distributed and complex global network infra- structure, while ensuring compliance with strict security and compliance standards and reducing downtime.

Managing the Data Explosion

29 Feb 2012

Exponential Data Growth Needs Storage Solution by Bill Roth, VP of Marketing, Nexenta

This article discusses how IT professionals can design, develop and execute a big data strategy that will complement existing systems and processes. 

IT Services firm reduces client’s IT costs by 30 per cent with Cloud services - Case Study

27 Feb 2012

IT services provider Softwerx wanted to offer Cloud services to clients. The company worked with Rise, a firm that specializes in infrastructure-as-a-service, to develop its Cloud services. With the help of Rise, Softwerx reduces client’s IT costs and tailors services to their specific needs.

Will they ever learn on USB flash drives?

21 Feb 2012

Recently various news stories came out relating to the loss of an un-encrypted USB flash drive. The USB flash drive was owned by an employee of the nuclear safety watchdog, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR). ONR is a subdivision of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) a national independent watchdog for work-related health, safety and illness.

Martini Media - Case Study

20 Feb 2012

Martini Media is the leading digital media platform for reaching American consumers with household incomes over $100,000 – 25% of the internet population, 70% of the spending power. Martini operates a publisher network of 1,000 of the most affluent, engaging sites on the web in lifestyle and business, providing revenue support across web, video, mobile, email, social, and data.

The Scary New Hacking Trend

20 Feb 2012

Starting with Operation Aurora – the brazen 2009 cyber attacks on Google and other large enterprises – through to the recent high-profile data breach that shut down certificate authority (CA) DigiNotar and the recent breach of VeriSign hackers have learned to exploit a frightening and frequently ignored lapse in network security to gain control of victim networks. Philip Lieberman, President and CEO of Lieberman Software, explains what you can do to mitigate the risks of falling prey to this scary new hacking trend.

HarborOne - Case Study

20 Feb 2012

With $1.8 billion in assets, HarborOne Credit Union is the largest state chartered community credit union in New England and one of the top 100 in the country. The credit union serves the financial needs of consumer and business banking customers through a network of 14 full-service branches, and a mortgage office. Established in 1917 as Brockton Credit Union, HarborOne has grown to its present size with 16 offices across New England. Chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and regulated by the Massachusetts Division of Banks, HarborOne continues to be a local leader in a competitive banking environment.

Why are the Hackers Targeting Certificate Authorities and what can you do about it?

14 Feb 2012

As we venture into the brave new world that is 2012, many are looking for where the biggest opportunities for hackers will lie. We all know history has a habit of repeating itself so, with the sweet smell of success still in their nostrils, it is a fair assumption that the black hats will stick to what they’ve proven works. What we need to do is change what we’re doing to stop them. Calum MacLeod, EMEA Director, Venafi, examines 2011’s most disturbing IT security development, how certificate authority (CA) third-party trust providers have become the hacker target of choice. He details how it’s happened and what we have to do to ensure we keep the bad guys out.

FCS Financial - Case Study

13 Feb 2012

Integrated customer relationship management solution supports 20% annual business growth with limited staff additions

The Company

FCS Financial is part of the nationwide Farm Credit System located in Jefferson City, MO. that provides lending opportunities and financial services to more than 14,000 farmers and farm-related businesses through 29 branch offices.

International sport marketing company protect its company-wide communication

10 Feb 2012

Infront Sports & Media AG: Clear decision in favor of Barracuda NG Firewall

Infront has relied on the NG Firewall Appliances by Barracuda Networks now since early 2011 in order to protect corporate-wide communications between its distributed locations. With centralized management and a straightforward rollout of the infrastructure Barracuda left its competitors lagging way behind and scored a hat trick on top of this with excellent support quality.

The Distance - Case Study

06 Feb 2012

UK creative and digital agency The Distance believes in just that – going the distance for its clients. Be it developing innovative new mobile applications for its customers, or designing and hosting ecommerce sites, The Distance is in it for the long haul, helping its clients not only create an online presence capable of meeting todayʼs demand, but also ensuring they can cope with whatever tomorrow throws at them.

Datacentres set for growth in Central and Eastern Europe

06 Feb 2012

Datacentres have experienced tremendous growth rates over the past five years, and now represent the most critical component of the Internet economy. Without datacentres, the emerging Cloud opportunities for agility and IT efficiency and increased competitiveness would not be possible to realise.

LOVEFiLM - Case Study

06 Feb 2012

LOVEFiLM is Europe’s leading film subscription service, providing an innovative movie rental model that blends online and offline delivery channels, allowing subscribers to stream and watch movies via the LOVEFiLM player or receive DVDs by post. Its 1.6 million members can choose from a selection of more than 70,000 titles including Blu-ray content, DVDs, video games and digital streaming. In November 2010, LOVEFiLM launched its service on the Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3).

Prestwich Arts College Case Study

02 Feb 2012

Prestwich Arts College in Bury is a mixed comprehensive school providing secondary education for students between the ages of 11 and 16. In 2004, the school was designated as one of the government’s specialist ‘Arts Colleges’ reflecting the school’s excellence and aptitude for Arts and Media.

Top Magazines Lower TCO - Case Study

31 Jan 2012

Condé Nast Digital Germany uses GoGrid to deliver content — securely, flexibly, and inexpensively

Condé Nast Digital Germany relies on GoGrid to distribute the high-quality content in several of Germany’s top print magazines over the web. When they visit the German-language sites for Glamour, GQ, and Vogue, readers find more than just the latest articles. Condé Nast Digital Germany provides them with archived content, communities, enhanced shopping, special microsites, and more. Reliant on advertising revenue, Condé Nast Digital Germany needs to keep its costs low while delivering an engaging experience to site visitors.

Is your service provider on the right cloud?

30 Jan 2012

Sometimes there are simply too many options and everything begins to sound the same so how do you select the best solution for your company? OK. Let's back up a second. You made the decision to outsource some or all of your IT operations. Either you need more capacity or perhaps you want to rent extra capacity for peak loads. Basically, you need to find new ways to quickly and easily accommodate to changes in your business without causing disruption.

Data centre SOS: save our servers!

27 Jan 2012

A 2011 report into data centre energy use highlighted that worldwide consumption grew by 56% between 2005 and 2010.¹ In fact, in 2010, data centres accounted for between 1.1% and 1.5% of the world's total energy consumption. Combine this increasing usage with rising energy costs, and you can see why a growing number of organisations are choosing to make economies of scale by cutting overheads or consolidating their data centres.

Cloud service saves accountants 30 per cent on their IT costs - Case Study

27 Jan 2012

A case study for Rise and George Hay Chartered Accountants

Overview

Chartered accountant George Hay wanted to reduce its IT costs and implement an IT infrastructure that would grow with its business. The company worked with Softwerx, an IT services and software development firm, to deploy a Cloud infrastructure based on DataCenter on Demand technology. With the help of Softwerx, George Hay reduced its IT costs by 30 per cent and gained peace of mind from a new disaster-recovery service. 

The Benefits of a Preventive Maintenance Service Plan for your UPS

23 Jan 2012

Eaton® Corporation, a global leader in power quality, distribution and control, strongly endorses a preventive maintenance service plan to maximize the reliability of an Uninterruptible Power System (UPS). Because companies rely on a UPS to deliver continuous power without any disruption to their business, a maintenance plan is a critical component to ensuring that a UPS minimizes the risks of downtime and performs as expected.

Investing in the future, by planning today - Case Study

23 Jan 2012

2plan Ltd provides advice, compliance and technology services to self-employed independent financial advisers (IFAs) nationwide, supported by one of the UK’s largest insurance companies, Standard Life. 

It needed to ensure its IT systems kept pace with phenomenal growth and supported the business seamlessly, enabling employees to focus on strategy and development. In order to do this it listed the help of Phoenix who were able to supply a full IT infrastructure hosting and management services using virtualisation technologies. A dual-centre failover, data replication and thin-client environment supports business continuity, while built-in scalability enables capacity upgrades in line with business growth. 

Your mobile can do more than call the emergency services

23 Jan 2012

SecurEnvoy walks you through a business continuity plan - so you’re ready for anything

There are few that will forget the last couple of winters. Freezing conditions saw chaos in most parts of the country, as our travel system ground to a halt, and flu epidemics threatened to close offices. But it’s not just wintry conditions that can cause chaos for organisations. The Icelandic ash clouds proved that - with employees either stuck in the wrong place or having to cancel important business trips. 

Cloud communications and the converged data centre

19 Jan 2012

Alastair Mills, of recently launched Six Degrees Group, explores the use of data, network and voice services, and whether point solutions or converged services are the future. He also identifies the pros and cons that companies must assess before making the decision that is best for them. 

Until recently, there has been a very clear divide between telecoms and IT networks, and between voice and data, but that divide is starting to crumble. Telecoms companies are beginning to see which way the wind is blowing: Verizon paid $1.4bn to acquire Terremark earlier this year as part of its strategy of providing “everything-as-a-service” to business and government customers worldwide.

4D Data Centres - Case study

17 Jan 2012

4D Data Centres is a UK co-location and connectivity business located in Surrey (Sirius 2 is its Tier 3 data centre) within easy reach of London and Heathrow. Close proximity to the M25 and the main railway line to London enables 4D to offer high-speed and diverse connectivity to the UK’s main communication hubs and other major colocation providers in London, Surrey, Kent and South East England. As well as quarter, half and full rack space provision, 4D offers a range of hosting services including server colocation, dedicated servers and managed services from its purpose-built secure data centre.

A difficult diesel generator system

16 Jan 2012

The performance requirements for data centres and for colocation are increasing all the time. Ten years ago, the fact that a data centre had a backup generator and could generate mains power when the mains failed was enough. Today it isn’t. Customers demand more, and new data centres being built are at N+1 – that is they not only have a backup generator, but they have another backup generator in case the first one fails to start, or there is a mains failure when one is being serviced. The introduction of Tier Levels from US-based organisations mandates at least two generator sets for the facility to be at Tier 3 level, either of which can support the entire facility electronic load. Customers in the market want such levels of performance and are increasingly asking for them and asking technical questions about the level of redundancy and resilience that a facility has. Facilities which cannot provide and demonstrate the necessary levels lose credibility and business and get left behind by the market.

If Only Your Infrastructure Had a Brain

16 Jan 2012

The critical challenge faced in managing a cloud infrastructure is a lack of control.  The inability to properly understand and control all the moving parts prevents organizations from operating efficiently and achieving desired cost savings and density levels.  The complexity associated with shared infrastructure and mobile workloads, combined with varying technical, business and operational requirements across applications, has left organizations with no choice but to wildly over-provision shared environments in order to keep systems operating safely. 

Clifford Chance - Case Study

16 Jan 2012

Clifford Chance is a leading law firm, employing 3,800 legal advisors across 27 offices and 20 countries. As a result of the increasing challenges and industry issues facing the legal sector, Clifford Chance recognized the need for an intelligent data centrer management service which could enhance the management of its two London based data centers. With this in mind, the company chose to approach nlyte Software through a non-competitive pitch.

Oracle Application Acceleration Solutions Provide Customers with Improved User Experience

12 Jan 2012

Since most database applications are I/O-intensive, they generally require high storage I/O performance – such is the case with Oracle-based applications. Research on user needs have shown that Oracle application users share a common belief that their back-end storage system I/O performance needs to be improved in order to overcome major challenges such as long index query response times, slow index updates, low efficiency of external cache hot database table queries, and low concurrent capacity. However, the root cause of these problems is often that the arbitrary I/O processing capacity of a storage system cannot meet the performance requirements of Oracle applications.

Who actually is responsible for virtual backup?

12 Jan 2012

The virtualisation landscape has changed for the better for SMBs. The technology required is no longer just a viable option for enterprises with ample budgets and vast resources; it’s now available to companies of all sizes. With an increase in the number of available virtualisation options, and analysts including Gartner and IDC predicting growth in the sector - 2012 is set to be the year that virtualisation becomes a reality in the SMB space. 

The Six ‘Gotchas’ of Disaster Recovery

11 Jan 2012

It is no surprise that disaster preparation is top of mind among people these days. The images and stories coming out of Japan following the devastating earthquake and tsunami and recently repeated in end-of-year reviews, inevitably lead to people wondering, "What would I do if the earth moved or water flooded my state, city or neighborhood?" The floods in Thailand in late 2011 which have resulted in major hard-drive shortages are another example of disasters which can affect business continuity.

Cost-effectively dealing with the growing security compliance issue

11 Jan 2012

Michael Hamelin, Chief Security Architect with security lifecycle specialists Tufin Technologies explains how to extract maximum value from automated compliance audit software – and improve your organisation’s security posture in the process…

In these IT cost-conscious times, most budgets – yes, even in the IT security department – are always under review, and usually in a downwards direction. At the same time – and just to make life interesting - the volume of regulatory and compliance requirements are heading in the opposite direction.

Don’t fear the outsourcer, let it free you

10 Jan 2012

Outsourcing is often seen as a threat by an internal IT department, but according to Michel Robert, managing director of Claranet, this anxiety is misplaced.

On any given day, an IT department’s schedule will include a rather hefty chunk of day-to-day ‘housekeeping’ – tasks that are fairly mundane but necessary, not to mention time-consuming. And lets not forget maintenance of existing infrastructure and systems usually represents at least 80% of an IT department’s workload.  In the meantime, most IT departments are also being asked to address new business requirements without any additional staff.

Rackspace Defines Five Cloud Trends For 2012 – The Year The Cloud “Got Real”

10 Jan 2012

Infrastructural awareness comes to the fore alongside importance of open source, mobile and services

Rackspace Hosting, the specialist in hosting and cloud computing, has determined five trends that will be fundamentally important market-driving factors across the cloud computing landscape in the year ahead. As we now look to more refined and attuned levels of cloud adoption and deployment across every industry vertical, Rackspace’s Chief Technology Officer, John Engates, shares his vision for the cloud in 2012 and beyond.

Client Services - Case Study

09 Jan 2012

Aspect’s unified communications application powers collections company to triple productivity

Client Services, Inc., founded in 1987, is a full service receivables management and call centre services company. With the majority of its business generated from debt collections on credit cards, Client Services also handles teleservices, telesales and customer service calls. The company offers a diverse selection of programs from first party/early stage recovery, to third party/post charge-off recovery, along with a variety of customer care management solutions.

Review of 2011 and 2012 predictions

06 Jan 2012

Three senior executives at Dimension Data, the global IT services provider, have given their views on the enterprise technology trends we saw in 2011, and what’s going to happen in the year ahead.

The New Twitter: Just Another Pretty Face? Or Just the Ticket to Reach The Masses of Social Networkers?

05 Jan 2012

Twitter recently decided to change its user interface and, at the same time, introduce a host of new features (http://fly.twitter.com/). These changes were meant to make it more compelling as a social networking platform and, at the same time, make it more intuitive for the un-initiated to grasp. However, there are rumblings that Twitter’s face lift has left many feeling a little … disconnected.

By David Lavenda

Can business harness the benefits of the hybrid cloud without losing data privacy?

03 Jan 2012

Gary Sumner, CTO and founder of Datacastle, argues that businesses must centrally manage and enforce their data-security policies to cope with a growing panoply of cloud-services and endpoints

Radical changes in the way business stores its data are looming, with massive implications for data-security.

New Forrester research shows 66% of enterprises are moving their desktops, servers and data into the relatively uncharted territory of the hybrid cloud.