The list of substantial and incredibly costly data breaches grows every day. Target, Home Depot, Dairy Queen, and Ahold Supermarkets are some of the more well-known examples, but there are literally hundreds of other breaches that get far less attention. It all adds up to a huge problem for IT and data center professionals. The… Continue reading Best Practices for Protecting Against Data Breaches
Category: Tech Series
Managing Massive Data Growth
A Combination of Data Efficiency Technologies Provides Ways to Optimize Primary Storage Capacity and Performance It’s no secret that growth in data is expected to remain rampant for many years to come. According to the InformationWeek “State of Enterprise Storage 2014” survey, IT is dealing with 25% or more yearly growth at nearly one-third of… Continue reading Managing Massive Data Growth
Guided by the Green Grid
As business demands increase, so too does the number of data center facilities and the amount of IT equipment they house. With escalating demand for data center operations and rising energy costs, it is essential for data center owners and operators to monitor, assess and continually improve performance using energy efficiency and environmental impact metrics.… Continue reading Guided by the Green Grid
Why the Internet of Things Must Be On Your Data Center Radar.
Splunk. Glassbeam. Azure. Amazon Web Services. If you are a CIO, get used to these names, because they (or their competitors) are likely to become an active part of your IT infrastructure over the next few years as the Internet of Things moves from bleeding-edge concept to mission-critical reality. The Internet of Things (IoT), the… Continue reading Why the Internet of Things Must Be On Your Data Center Radar.
Cooling More With Less
A Four-Part Framework for Resilient Data Center Architecture
Cornerstone concepts to support cybersecurity While working on a recent project, we came across a newsletter authored by Deb Frincke, then Chief Scientist of Cybersecurity Research for the National Security Division at the Pacific Northwest National Lab in Seattle, which outlined her team’s initiatives for “innovative and proactive science and technology to prevent and counter… Continue reading A Four-Part Framework for Resilient Data Center Architecture
Planning for the Inescapable Crush of Mobile Data Growth
Mobile Access is Driving New Demand for Smarter Networks and More Intelligent Data Center Architecture Big data often seems to dominate headlines in IT publications. Few trends carry as dramatic a potential impact on business processes, with data-driven decision making becoming de rigueur across departments in all enterprises. But for IT, an even more important… Continue reading Planning for the Inescapable Crush of Mobile Data Growth
Five Keys to Improving Data Center Resilience In the Age of Customer-Centricity
When Customers Are Involved, Being “Ready for Anything” Takes on New Urgency For many CIO’s trained in traditional IT service metrics, the new world of IT can seem daunting. No longer is your customer constituency comprised of primarily internal users. Instead, your most important customers are now your company’s customers, and the implications of disappointing… Continue reading Five Keys to Improving Data Center Resilience In the Age of Customer-Centricity
Six Factors Influencing Data Center Efficiency Design
In rapidly evolving markets, bigger is not always better. Is your data center designed for efficiency? The aggressive efforts of DISA, the Defense Information Systems Agency, to rationalize and consolidate mission-critical data center facilities has put a spotlight on the challenges of planning a data center infrastructure that is reliable, resilient, responsive, secure and efficient… Continue reading Six Factors Influencing Data Center Efficiency Design
Beyond the Server Room
As IT Becomes an Enabler of Business Value, a New Framework for IT Decision Making Must Emerge In the September/October issue of Educause Review, David Maxwell, President of Drake University has written an excellent essay titled ‘Technology and Shared Governance’ that describes his views on the process of IT decision making in an era of… Continue reading Beyond the Server Room
OpEx Solutions for Financing Data Center Renovation/Construction
Funding a data center build, renovation or expansion does not have to mean draining capital resources. Big Data. Mobile enablement. The knowledge economy. The reasons are myriad, but the impact is singular…data center demand continues to grow in the enterprise, regardless of industry or corporate maturity. Today’s CIO must figure out how to satisfy an… Continue reading OpEx Solutions for Financing Data Center Renovation/Construction
DCIM 2.0: The Emergence of Data Center Information Management Systems
Over the past 5 years, data center infrastructure management (DCIM) has become an acknowledged, if somewhat inconsistently implemented, approach to control and oversight of IT facilities. DCIM offers a centralized approach to the monitoring and management of the critical systems in a data center. Currently, DCIM implementation are primarily focus on physical and asset-level components… Continue reading DCIM 2.0: The Emergence of Data Center Information Management Systems
Beyond PUE: Three Factors to Consider in Planning Data Center Strategy
If you are a CIO evaluating data center plans, you already know that the rules have changed and at the forefront of the rule-breaking changes is the cloud. While the driving force for cloud migration is often perceived as capital cost reduction, the cloud is proving to be much more. In a 2012 KPMG survey1,… Continue reading Beyond PUE: Three Factors to Consider in Planning Data Center Strategy
GE and EMC Pivotal: Three Things Every CIO Can Learn From Them.
Recently, General Electric announced a $105 Million investment in EMC Pivotal. The investment reflects the companies growing commitment to smart systems/devices under their industrial Internet initiative. From locomotives to turbines to household appliances, GE sees a world where the ‘internet of things’ delivers measurable value to users of these increasingly intelligent systems. They are not… Continue reading GE and EMC Pivotal: Three Things Every CIO Can Learn From Them.
Creating the Converged IT Stack
With the continued evolution of the ‘always on’ age and data-driven business strategy, the need to reengineer the data center around new principles has become evident. In a recent Executive Brief on Cloud-Scale Data Centers, Microsoft noted the strategic differences between the way enterprise IT has typically planned data center services, and the unique perspectives… Continue reading Creating the Converged IT Stack