Independent Information Technology and business analysis from IT-Director.com

BriefingsDirect analysts discuss ramifications of Google-China dust-up over corporate cyber attacks

Dana Gardner, Interarbor Solutions — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

The ongoing tiff between Google and the Internet control authorities in China have uncorked a Pandora's Box of security, free speech and corporate espionage issues. But there are also larger issues around security and Internet governance. [Read More...]

Extending enterprise communications seamlessly and with carrier control

Rob Bamforth, Quocirca — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

Moving from 'plain old telephone systems' to the 'pretty awesome new stuff' promised by convergence and unified communications will be a series of steps - enterprises need to make sure they ask carriers more questions [Read More...]

Advanced Data Recovery for IBM AIX Environments

Alan Arnold, Vision Solutions — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

For the most part, traditional tape-based backup and recovery techniques accomplish their rudimentary goals. Nonetheless, they suffer a number of drawbacks. The backup process itself is at the heart of one of the problems. [Read More...]

Making sense of it all 2

Philip Howard, Bloor Research — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

In the previous article with this title I discussed the consolidation of the MDM market. The same thing is happening in the CEP (complex event processing) market. However, here matters... [Read More...]

Advancing understanding of cloud-use benefits for enterprises

Dana Gardner, Interarbor Solutions — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

We examine the evolution of cloud, how businesses are grappling with that, and how they can learn to best exploit cloud-computing benefits, while fully understanding and controlling the risks. [Read More...]

Conficker grounds police checks

Nigel Stanley, Bloor Research — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

According to this article, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have been struck down by an instance of the Conficker virus. The effect has been immediate, with systems taken off line preventing... [Read More...]

Making sense of it all 1

Philip Howard, Bloor Research — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

When we published our most recent Market Update on MDM, just last August, there were half-a-dozen pure play vendors in the transactional MDM market. Now there are half that number. I need... [Read More...]

Bribery

Philip Howard, Bloor Research — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

You often hear security officers, not to mention vendors, talk about fraud detection and prevention but you seldom never in my experience) hear anyone talking about Bribery. However, in the... [Read More...]

Security, simplicity and control ease make desktop virtualization ready for enterprise uptake

Dana Gardner, Interarbor Solutions — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

Enterprises are looking for ways to save on costs, and are constantly looking for different ways to more efficiently manage their distributed PC environments. All of these things are driving the high level of interest in virtualizing PCs. [Read More...]

Performance and profitability don't have to suffer as a result of high CPU usage

Julian Stuhler, Triton Consulting Ltd — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

Managing performance and cost has become a significantly more difficult job with capacity planners and performance analysts having to defer hardware and software upgrades due to squeezed budgets. [Read More...]

Technology, process and people must combine smoothly to achieve strategic virtualization benefits

Dana Gardner, Interarbor Solutions — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

Many people have probably heard the term virtual machine sprawl or VM sprawl, and that's one of the risks. Part of the reason VM sprawl occurs is because there are no clear defined processes in place. [Read More...]

Security skills provide top draw across IT jobs landscape

Dana Gardner, Interarbor Solutions — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

We interview David Foote, CEO at Foote Partners, on the IT job landscape for 2010 and to see where the recession has taken IT hiring and where the recovery will shape up. [Read More...]

Columns aren't enough anymore

Philip Howard, Bloor Research — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

I have been preaching the columnar message for data warehousing for the best part of ten years. That argument has been won. However it is now clear that columns on their own aren't enough. Yes,... [Read More...]

What's wrong with "security"

David Norfolk, Bloor Research — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

Everybody's security-focused these days. So, what's wrong with Security? Well, possibly the word security itself and the silo'd thinking it encourages. And also, I'm afraid, sometimes the people in... [Read More...]

What is Total Cost of Ownership, and Why Should You Care?

Laurie McCabe, Hurwitz and Associates — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:43:18 +0100

(Originally published in Small Business Computing, January 29, 2010) Technology insiders tend to throw around technical terms and business jargon, assuming people outside the industry understand what... [Read More...]

Apple and Oracle on way to do what IBM and Microsoft could not: Dominate entire markets

Dana Gardner, Interarbor Solutions — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

Apple and Oracle may be unstoppable in their burgeoning power to dominate the collection of profits across vast and essential markets for decades. [Read More...]

Calpont finally comes to market

Philip Howard, Bloor Research — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

It's been a long time coming but Calpont has finally come to market with InfiniDB. Actually, it launched the open source Community Edition of the product last year but now it is introducing the... [Read More...]

Appliances Are Getting Cheaper

Andy Hayler, The Information Difference — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:00:00 +0100

Calpont has emerged from a troubled past with new investors, staff, and a data warehouse appliance that appears to be very cheap indeed. This is still a version 1 product, with several missing features, but the price point is attractive. [Read More...]

Time to give server virtualization's twin, storage virtualization, a place at IT efficiency table

Dana Gardner, Interarbor Solutions — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0100

By going to storage virtualization, they can have a 300 percent increase in that existing storage asset utilization, depending upon how it's implemented. [Read More...]

Does IBM Lotus Really Want to Get Small? My Take on Brent Leary's Podcast

Laurie McCabe, Hurwitz and Associates — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:01:27 +0100

I still haven't had time to write about Lotusphere 2010, but in the meantime, you may want to listen to the conversation I had with small business guru and friend�Brent Leary. Last week, Brent... [Read More...]