Tony Lock on IT-Director.com

Backup and Recovery - Still Imperfect After All These Years

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:00:00 +0100

Some things in life, for example taxes, taxis and the music of younger generations, seem to have been around forever yet we are still not comfortable with them. The same can be said of some areas of IT, with Backup and Recovery springing [Read More...]

Clouds yet to fill the IT skies

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 07:00:00 +0100

Should organisations expect their IT systems infrastructure to become hazy with numerous Cloud offerings? [Read More...]

Storage Expo - What happened in 2008?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:21:00 +0100

In 2007 the UK's large exhibition focussed on the storage industry found itself parroting all things green, frankly often flying in the face of any or all material evidence to the... [Read More...]

Missing Metadata - The barrier to effective storage management

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:00:00 +0100

As the volume of data being generated continues to soar and the costs of storing it escalate dramatically it is clear that something has to be done to ensure that business information is managed effectively and within budget. Can content ma [Read More...]

The Fear of Buying

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 07:43:00 +0100

Even when times have been good, when the economy is strong and everything looks rosy, those lucky folk charged with buying IT solutions frequently exhibit signs of reluctance, if not downright fear... [Read More...]

IT Budgets, Clouds and Virtualisation

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:57:00 +0100

Currently there is a lot of noise being generated regarding Cloud Computing and flexible IT infrastructures based on virtualised platforms. There is no doubt that the technologies to be found at the... [Read More...]

Time To Take the Tablet - Vista's unsung platform

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:59:00 +0100

Several years ago Microsoft launched its Tablet software with much fanfare. Today the platform has almost vanished from corporate marketing programmes despite the fact that Windows Vista Tablet is a... [Read More...]

The long and winding road to application service availability

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:48:00 +0100

Strange as it may seem today the days of hyper-resilient systems have yet to arrive. Applications today suffer service disruption events on a reasonably frequent basis. Our research shows that some... [Read More...]

Cloud Computing - Costly Storm or Gentle Breeze?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:32:00 +0100

It's hard to read an article on the web these days without either Cloud computing or Software as a Service (SaaS to those in the know) being proffered as the answer to... [Read More...]

Desktop Virtualisation - Where to Begin

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:38:00 +0100

There is increasing discussion in many organisations, across a broad range of geographies, industry verticals and sizes, concerning the subject of Desktop Virtualisation. Even without... [Read More...]

Is there a business case to be made in favour of virtualising the desktop?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:33:00 +0100

If you are looking at desktop/notebook replacement or optimisation now, what are the options and considerations that should be on your mind as you weigh up the options? As one of my colleagues stated... [Read More...]

Not If or When, The Question is What?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:03:00 +0100

A few weeks ago I pointed out that IT management tools are finally, after many decades of masquerade, ready to deliver the functionality that their product descriptions infer, namely capabilities to... [Read More...]

Missing Meta Data Needed for Effective Storage Management

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:56:00 +0100

Ever since time, or at least Computing time, began most of the focus has centred around the processing of data. Until recently it would be straight forward to argue that too little attention has... [Read More...]

Finally "Management" Not Just "Monitoring"

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:12:00 +0100

Almost since the world was created, at least the IT world, computer systems and all the associated, and increasingly complex, plethora of associated equipment has required feeding and watering. Few... [Read More...]

Security solutions seeking problems

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:58:00 +0100

The last few days have involved me in a number of meetings with both vendors and end customers of all sizes. For much of the week I spent time at the Infosec security show in London but I also... [Read More...]

Why is IT still not communicating well with business?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:08:00 +0100

For many years now there has been intense discussion within the IT industry highlighting the absolute need for IT to get much closer to the business clients it supports and whose daily activities... [Read More...]

Virtualisation Management - Vendors See the Light?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:41:00 +0100

At the end of last year we carried out a survey on all aspects of virtualisation and, whilst the results were interesting, there were few 'knock me over' surprises. However the findings did show, very,... [Read More...]

Storage Vendors for All Sizes

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:23:00 +0100

I have spent a lot of time over the course of the last few months with a number of storage vendors. What has struck me most forcibly has been the continuing energy and effort being applied to the... [Read More...]

Virtualisation at all Scales, but where's the management engine?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:53:00 +0100

Over the course of the last few weeks anybody taking even a quick scan of the IT media would have been inundated, if not overwhelmed, by the flood of press releases detailing product developments in... [Read More...]

Virtualisation - The Answer to World Poverty and Global Warming?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:18:00 +0100

This week has witnessed more development in the virtualisation field than could comfortably be covered by a large posse of analysts each armed with virtualised light sabres. Indeed, the last 4 days... [Read More...]

Management Maturity - Change, Threat, Opportunity?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:01:00 +0100

I have spent a lot of time over the last few months thinking about the often haphazard evolution that IT management approaches and technologies have taken over the last few years. And in many... [Read More...]

Sun sparkle around the Black Hole of virtualization management

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:12:00 +0100

Many vendors that have started off their existence with a strong emphasis on hardware struggle to come to terms with the modern IT world where, for the majority of organisations, subtle differences... [Read More...]

Networking Comes Out of the Closet

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:35:00 +0100

Over the course of the years few things remain certain in the rapidly developing world of IT. Of those that do the under appreciation of the efforts of IT staff easily tops the list but over the last... [Read More...]

Microsoft - Virtually There?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:34:00 +0100

The last seven days has seen a flurry of activity in the IT vendor community, much of it centred on the complex and rapidly expanding area of 'virtualisation'. Cisco has been holding its Networker... [Read More...]

Will Sun thrive with MySQL?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:38:00 +0100

This week news of not one but two big software acquisitions were announced within minutes of each other. In the first Oracle announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire BEA in a deal valued... [Read More...]

SaaS - Good and Bad?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:15:00 +0100

I had some interesting conversations this week at an analyst meeting focused around SaaS. Nothing too surprising that this should be the subject of the day as it was the first time that... [Read More...]

Storage Vendors Buy as Old Year Ends and 2008 Begins

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:50:00 +0100

Over the course of the last few years no part of the IT landscape has developed as rapidly as that of Storage and Storage Management. Even the rapidly developing virtualisation sectors would struggle... [Read More...]

What does IT really want for Christmas?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:52:00 +0100

It is that time of year again when wild office parties lead to the consumption of a mild excess of alcohol and non-health related foodstuffs and where people, even IT staff, look forward to receiving... [Read More...]

Are you willing to pay more for a stylish PC?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:28:00 +0100

Over the course of the last few weeks I have had a number of conversations with big PC and laptop vendors, most memorably Fujitsu-Siemens Computers and Hewlett Packard. During the course of these... [Read More...]

The future of 'Support'- Front Line or Public Face?

Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:14:00 +0100

Over the course of the last few weeks I have spoken with quite a few organizations, including Fujitsu-Siemens, BT Basilica and Citrix amongst others, on the subject of IT support, perhaps once... [Read More...]