Guides

London 2012 Olympic Games Coverage

Less than 100 days are left until the 2012 London Olympics and there is still a lot of preparation needed for the Games itself and the surrounding London businesses.

In this guide you will find all the London Olympic news so far, including the effect it will have on London businesses, commuters, power drainage, bandwidth and more. Read the opportunities that have been created with local communities, IT skills and job creation.

Keep up to date on IT news from the 2012 London Olympics here.

A beginner's guide to virtualisation

You would be hard pushed to find someone in the IT sector that hasn’t heard of the word ‘virtualisation’ by now. However, just because it is a hot topic and regularly used buzzword doesn’t mean that everyone is a pro on the subject.

For those who have only heard of the word ‘virtualisation’ and would like to know more this guide contains information on installation, troubleshooting, configuring, virtual storage, and the different virtualisation technologies available to you.

Virtualisation

While virtualisation may be considered the best way forward for data centre infrastructure, there are plenty of barriers to successful adoption.

A UK guide to government and public sector IT

A guide to support IT professionals in making well informed decisions about technologies used within public sector organisations. Tips, news and podcasts include examples from the National Audit Office, the British Army, and local councils on how to translate technology into business benefits.

Learn how public sector organisations are using virtualisation, business intelligence, and unified communications in addition to implementing tighter security regulations.

The Budget 2012: Are you better or worse off?

As the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne reveals the contents of his red box, this year, find out all the news from the Budget 2012.

Keep up to date on the UK government’s plans for the economy and public finances, for the year ahead.

IT Works

Keep up to date on IT skills and training in the UK with news, video interviews, tips and blogs from industry experts.

A guide to buying storage hardware and software

This guide has been designed to help storage managers with their storage software and hardware decisions. It contains information on managing, implementing and maintaining storage technologies to help IT professionals with their storage software and hardware purchases.

This guide to buying storage hardware and software covers hard disks, tape drives, disk storage, and virtual storage.

A quick guide to IT security

Information security and data protection is crucial for every business, as it is likely that your company’s most prized asset is its data. Failure to secure your company’s sensitive information could be damaging to its brand in addition to leading to possible legal ramifications.

This quick guide, to IT security, includes news, tips, and articles on tackling cyber-attacks, data protection, malware and computer viruses.

Reflections on 2011 and predictions for 2012

With 2011 now behind us we have taken a look back at technology trends throughout last year, in addition to looking ahead to what 2012 may hold.

In this guide you will find 2011 roundups on virtualisation, cloud computing, outsourcing, storage, data management, careers and the IT channel.

A guide to simplifying data centre management

Nowadays a data centre is a complex and sometimes daunting environment to manage. Efficient data centre management enables you to plan updates and schedule changes in line with your data centres’ build out. Expansions, data centre updates and server consolidation projects are more popular than ever, but can uncover many challenges.

This guide has been designed to improve your knowledge around data centre management, so you can stay compliant, hit green IT initiatives and targets, lower costs, and increase scalability, in addition to keeping the lights on. Let this data centre managers’ guide be your one-stop resource centre for information and advice on data centre management.

This data centre management guide covers management tools, data recovery and virtualisation management.

A guide to embracing IT consumerisation

In this guide you will learn how to accept IT consumerisation as part of your IT department. As enterprises proactively address this trend, new relationships with between the IT department and users are being developed; however so are new fears.

Learn how to secure a mobile environment, the best networking techniques and how to benefit from BYOD.

Desktop computing is no longer about IT providing tools for employees. Consumer technology requires a rethink of IT support.

IT services and managed services

Deciding on whether to utilise IT services, as part of your business strategy, can be a hard decision to make. Firstly you need to decide whether or not IT services will be right for your business, in the long term, and secondly decide which IT services will be better suited for your company.

For example outsourcing may not always save you money, so it is important to do your research on the subject. According to a survey carried out at InfoSecurity Europe 2011, in London, and the RSA Conference 2011, in San Francisco, IT services contracts were costing more than expected for 62% of businesses.

The survey conducted by automation software supplier Lieberman Software found that out of the 500 IT professionals, who responded, a landslide 62% admitted to their outsourcing contracts costing them more than expected, despite turning to the option of outsourcing as a way to cut costs. Of these, 27% said costs were significantly higher when they included outsourcing as part of their IT strategy.

The guide has been designed to support you with decisions about IT services and managed services. Whether you are considering using IT services, currently receiving poor managed services, or outgrowing an existing provider, let this guide be your one-stop resource centre for information and advice on IT services.

This IT services guide covers outsourcing, managed service providers and cloud services.

Social Media Awards 2011

Computer Weekly's search for the best use of social media in IT is back for its fourth year and we want you to take part in our new, improved awards programme for 2011.

Social media is an increasingly important tool for communication, collaboration and sharing experiences among the UK IT community, so we’ve expanded our successful blog awards to become the Social Media Awards.

If you need some help deciding, then click on the category pages to find out more about the shortlisted social media heroes.

Find out more about IBM's involvement in the Social Media Awards.

Voting has now begun so click on the link below and be sure to vote for your favourites!

Green computing energy efficiency guide

Green computing is no longer just a white-wash expression, as government schemes like the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) scheme, the Climate Change Agreement (CCA) or the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS), are encouraging companies to revaluate their use of IT resources. Finding new ways of improving energy efficiency is no longer a boardroom discussion, but a reality for many UK businesses.

This guide has been designed to help you improve overall energy efficiency, within the IT department, and implement the right green technology for your business.

This green technology guide covers green computing, government legislation and energy efficiency.

The network administrators’ guide

As a network administrator it’s your job to install, configure and maintain PCs, network operating systems and network equipment.

To support you in managing your network, establish security levels, and control system access, we’ve put this mini tutorial together for you. The network administrator tutorial has been designed to support you with your network security and network management needs. Let this tutorial be your one-stop resource centre which contains information and advice for network administrators.

This network administrators’ tutorial covers network security and your network management.

Data analysis and business intelligence tutorial

Business intelligence can be beneficial for analysing internal raw data, such as turnover by department or product, and identify inefficient business processes that can be re-engineered to better suit your business needs. However, you have to ensure that your data is clean, trustworthy and of good quality for those who will use it.

This guide has been designed to enable you to maintain a competitive edge, through the analysis of business data and better data management.

This business intelligence tutorial covers data management, data analysis, business data usage and business analytics.

Business intelligence (BI) is an all-encompassing category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analysing, and providing access to data to support enterprise users in making better informed business decisions. Business intelligence applications include the activities of decision support systems, query and reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), data management, statistical analysis, forecasting, data analytics and data mining.

How to comply with the EU cookie law

The EU cookie law is a piece of privacy legislation that was originally adopted by all EU countries on May 26th 2011. The UK was given one year to comply with the EU directive after it updated its Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which brought the EU directive in to UK law.

The cookie law requires websites to gain consent from visitors to store or receive any information on a computer or any other web connected devices (e.g. smartphone or tablet). The cookie law has been designed to protect online privacy of customers by making them aware, and giving them a choice, about the amount of information collected by websites. Each EU member has its own approach to the law; however the basic requirements of the directive remain the same.

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) is responsible for ensuring that organisations comply with the cookie law. The ICO has issue two sets of guidelines, so far, with the most recent reminding those concerned how the law ‘will not go away.’

After May 26th if a business is not compliant, or is not visibly working towards compliance, it will run the risk of enforcement action and a possible fine of up to half a million pounds.

Read news and tips on how to comply with the EU cookie law.

Supplier Profile: Fujitsu

In this Fujitsu guide you will find a special nine-page report from Computer Weekly which analyses the challenges facing Fujitsu, its financial performance, the services it offers, its place in the IT market and its future strategies.

You will also find up to date news and tips on Fujitsu in addition to further Fujitsu resources and whitepapers from TechTarget’s research library.

Blade servers: How to decide on Unix or Linux

How do you decide whether to use Unix or Linux for your blade sever and whether it’s time to consider a migration?

Common questions that should influence your choice are:

• Why are you considering moving off your current platform?
• How many users do you support?
• Does your application require high availability?
• Which operating system does your staff know best?
Nowadays both Unix and Linux are valid and reasonable infrastructure choices, so you just need to figure out which is the best option for you and your business.

In this guide you will find news, tips and features on Unix and Linux for blade servers. In addition you will find the most popular and helpful command lines for both operating systems.

InfoSec Europe 2012: Conference coverage

Keep up date with all the news from InfoSec Europe 2012, taking place 24-26 April at London’s Earls Court.

Here you will find pre-show news, conference news and features, videos and images from exhibitors and attendees around the show.

Supplier Profile: Oracle

In this Oracle guide you will find a special nine page report from Computer Weekly analysing the challenges facing Oracle, along with figures about its financial performance, the services it offers, its place in the market and what the future may hold for the vendor.

You will also find up to date news and tips on Oracle in addition to further Oracle resources and whitepapers from TechTarget’s research library.

Essential guide: EU Data Protection Regulation

This guide lays out what the new European Data Protection Regulation means for European businesses.

Find news, features, tips and videos on the European Data Protection Regulation

Supplier profile: Symantec

In this Symantec guide you will find a special nine page report from Computer Weekly analysing the challenges facing Symantec, along with figures about its financial performance, the services it offers, its place in the market and what the future may hold for the vendor.

You will also find up to date news and tips on Symantec in addition to further Symantec resources and whitepapers from TechTarget’s research library.

EMC World 2012 conference coverage

EMC World 2012 is taking place 21-24th May at The Venetian, in Las Vegas.

Keep up to date with all the conference news and industry tips.