In Depth
In Depth
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
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The CMA anti-trust investigation into AWS and Microsoft explained: Everything you need to know
After regulator Ofcom raised red flags about the anti-competitive behaviour of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, the UK cloud market was referred to the Competition and Markets Authority – here’s why Continue Reading
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Cloud is not always the answer: Five reasons why
We look at why the cloud is not always the best choice, including for reasons of cost, application suitability, management, data protection and the needs of the business Continue Reading
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Levelling the playing field: Could a UK cloud strategy weaken the hold of the hyperscalers?
Over time, global hyperscale has taken a majority share of the UK market. How best could the government respond to Ofcom’s review to sustain local industry while best serving customers? Continue Reading
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Interview: Ex-UKCloud chairman airs economic fears over growing dominance of US hyperscalers
More than a year has passed since UKCloud went into liquidation - its former chairman outlines his concerns about the economic impact of the UK cloud market floundering in the face of the US hyperscalers Continue Reading
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Pure Storage: Flash ‘startup’ that brings late entrant advantage
Storage profile: We look at Pure Storage, the youngest of the array makers, which comes to market with well-developed flash, hybrid cloud and consumption purchasing models Continue Reading
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NetApp: NAS pioneer well set for the cloud revolution
In this storage profile, we look at NetApp, which built a reputation in file access storage but seems to be set fair to navigate a future of hybrid cloud, cloud-native and containerisation Continue Reading
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Going cloud-native: How to develop better cloud apps
Cloud apps do not always perform as desired – and there are multiple contributing factors, from resource gaps to blind spots and poor planning. Continue Reading
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Hitachi Vantara: Small part of a big corp and analytics focus
We look at Hitachi Vantara, its storage, its cloud offer, the workloads it targets, and its efforts in containerisation and consumption models of storage purchasing Continue Reading
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How APCOA is using big data to reinvent car parks
Car park operator APCOA is using big data to transform traditional car parks into mobility hubs that will offer electric vehicle charging, space for small businesses and depots for delivery companies Continue Reading
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Container storage platforms: Big six approach starts to align
Container storage is a complex but vital task. We survey the big six storage makers and see methods are starting to align around management platforms Continue Reading
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Reverse cloud migrations: Why some enterprises are shifting their IT back on-premise
With a steady trickle of customer organisations returning on-premise, a need to plan better may not be the whole story Continue Reading
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Expensive datacentre outages: Untangling messy collaborations, contributing costs and complexity
Even if outages in the datacentre are trending down, Uptime data this year traces rising costs per outage. So what can be done? Continue Reading
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Providers unconcerned about Ofcom probe into hyperscaler influence on cloud market
Should we be more worried about the growing dominance of the three big cloud providers – AWS, Azure and Google? Continue Reading
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What cloud users need to know: Ensuring greater end point engagement for improved cloud delivery
Although early-adopter worries about cloud may have dissipated, the end-user experience can still leave much to be desired Continue Reading
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Putting artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads in the cloud
We look at the pros and cons of putting artificial intelligence and machine learning applications in the cloud Continue Reading
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Burning up: Mitigation should sustain datacentre operations during extreme heat
July’s temperature spike put headline heat on regional operations at Google and Oracle. Datacentre operators must side-step similar mistakes to avoid climate change-related collapse in future Continue Reading
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Icelandic datacentres may lead the way to green IT
Iceland may soon become even more attractive to companies wanting to minimise their carbon footprint while using high-performance computing services Continue Reading
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Looking ahead: How to create a multi-year datacentre capacity plan
Datacentres and cloud providers without a crystal ball can make educated guesses on future requirements to right-size resources and infrastructure Continue Reading
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AWS and startups: Using accelerator programmes to help enterprises address their pain points
The early days of Amazon Web Services saw its public cloud technologies keenly adopted by the startup community. Now the company is continuing its support for this customer sector by rolling out its accelerator programmes Continue Reading
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Cloud-to-cloud backup: When native cloud protection is not enough
There is a certain amount of protection built into cloud services, but it has its limits and full data protection requires that cloud data is secured with cloud-to-cloud backup Continue Reading
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Hydrogen’s promise: How fuel cells might power lower-carbon datacentres
Could UK datacentre operators soon adopt emerging hydrogen technologies to reach expanding energy and emissions requirements? Continue Reading
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Will AWS pledge to extend life of servers inspire other cloud firms to follow suit?
Amazon’s recent announcement to extend the useful life of its datacentre equipment has been deemed a positive decision for the cloud computing giant, but will other companies adopt this cost-saving and sustainability strategy? Continue Reading
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The time is now: Edge datacentres come of age
After years of hype and speculation, could the post-pandemic period see a resurgence in interest in the build-out of edge datacentres and compute environments as enterprises look to dust off projects that Covid-19 forced them to shelve? Continue Reading
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Weighing up the nuclear option for powering datacentres
Resourcing energy-hungry IT through the race to reduce carbon emissions means looking objectively at all the options, including nuclear power Continue Reading
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A waste of energy: Dealing with idle servers in the datacentre
Servers can be the slackers of the datacentre, consuming power without doing much work. Why not whip them into shape? Continue Reading
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Datacentres and climate change: Operators accused of being all talk and no action on sustainability
Datacentre operators talk a good fight when it comes to tackling climate change, but there is far more they should and could be doing to make their operations more sustainable, say experts Continue Reading
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Cracking the code on blockchain and crypto: What might adoption mean for datacentres?
A high share of datacentre customers look set to adopt blockchain technologies, including digital currencies, over the next few years Continue Reading
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Stakes raised for hybrid cloud as complexity challenges continue
Hybrid cloud may be with us for some time, so what does that mean for cloud provision in 2022? Continue Reading
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Clouds gather over Chinese providers – but is there a silver lining?
With the geopolitical outlook chillier than for some time, Computer Weekly explores the future prospects for UK-China approaches to technology and business Continue Reading
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APAC expert guide to cloud migration
In this expert guide on cloud migration in Asia-Pacific, we highlight the key considerations and strategies that enterprises can take when moving their workloads to public cloud Continue Reading
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How can enterprises avoid datacentre supply chain issues affecting IT upgrades?
With analysts predicting that the current datacentre component shortages could last for at least two years, CIOs are being advised to act now to prevent the situation affecting their IT upgrade plans Continue Reading
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What lies beyond the data warehouse?
Has the traditional data warehouse finally reached the end of its life? If so, what will follow it? Will it be a hybrid? We find out Continue Reading
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Could Iceland be the best place in the world for high-performance computing?
Most of Iceland’s cheap, sustainable energy is currently used by aluminium smelters, but recognising the need to diversify, the Landsvirkjun power company now promotes other uses Continue Reading
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The second coming: The Nordic datacentre market comes of age
As concerns mount about space and power constraints within several of Europe’s largest datacentre hubs, enterprises are being urged to consider shifting more of their energy-intensive workloads to the Nordic countries Continue Reading
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Five key questions to ask about storage-as-a-service and consumption models
We look at important questions to ask providers of consumption-based storage procurement services, such as base costs and burst, usage measurement and upgrade paths Continue Reading
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Hybrid IT: Making datacentre and cloud work better together in the enterprise
Enterprises are increasingly trying to balance and manage IT assets in a variety of environments, but there are plenty of tools and technologies out there to make the job a lot easier Continue Reading
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Microservices: What enterprises need to know
For any enterprises looking to build cloud-native applications, an understanding of microservices is essential Continue Reading
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Dublin in distress: Power supply issues threaten growth of Europe’s second-biggest datacentre hub
Dublin’s standing as Europe’s second-biggest datacentre hub could be on potentially shaky ground as Ireland’s electricity infrastructure creaks under the pressure of so many power-hungry server farms plugging into the national grid Continue Reading
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Post-pandemic IT: Are virtual datacentre tours here to stay?
A physical tour of a datacentre has traditionally been a key marketing and selling tool for colocation operators, and the Covid-19 pandemic has forced many to provide virtual alternatives. But how do they compare? Continue Reading
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Investigating process and performance improvement in private cloud
Continuous process improvement means, among other things, creating an environment that helps enterprises gauge performance as requirements change. However, the whole picture should be considered before deciding on an approach Continue Reading
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Private cloud deployments: Beating the blind spots and bottlenecks
Private cloud can be challenging to manage while meeting the ramped-up demands of data-driven enterprises Continue Reading
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How Bureau Veritas migrated 85% of its applications to the AWS cloud
In six years, France-based services giant BV has migrated 115 applications to the AWS cloud, mostly using in-house expertise. We talk to the company’s IT director Continue Reading
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Living on the edge: The enterprises working with distributed cloud
Distributed public cloud services are seen as driving future advances at the network edge but few companies are as yet enjoying full-fledged benefits Continue Reading
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APAC career guide on cloud computing
Besides having engineering chops and certifications, aspiring cloud professionals should have curiosity and soft skills to succeed in the evolving cloud computing landscape Continue Reading
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Five ways to boost systems utilisation in the datacentre
Datacentre operators are always looking for ways to cut costs and improve the efficiency of their facilities. Here we ask the experts for their top five tips for reducing the operating costs of running a server farm Continue Reading
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Hyper-converged infrastructure: Why software-defined everything might not work for all datacentres
Choosing the right converged infrastructure in the first instance can pivot on a trade-off between security and agility requirements Continue Reading
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Five key points about cloud vs in-house disaster recovery
The cloud is well suited as a disaster recovery failover option. The key questions are about what you should keep on-site and what goes to the cloud. We look at five key points to consider Continue Reading
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Serverless: Weighing up the pros and cons for enterprises
The concept of serverless computing has been gaining traction within enterprises for several years now, but what is it and how do CIOs know if it is the right fit for their applications? Continue Reading
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The end is nigh: Are datacentre operators prepared for a potential no-deal Brexit?
Datacentre operations are resilient and forward-thinking by nature, yet pitfalls and cost impacts are looming large with a potential no-deal Brexit on the horizon Continue Reading
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A safe bet: How Covid-19 is fuelling investor interest in the datacentre industry
With demand for cloud and colocation capacity soaring on the back of the Covid-19 pandemic, datacentres are looking like an increasingly attractive bet for the investor community. Computer Weekly finds out why Continue Reading
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How intelligent workload management tools can help IT admins cut through cloud complexity
IT administrators have to manage an increasingly complex and varied range of application types and IT environments, and intelligent workload management tools offer a helping hand with that Continue Reading
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CTO interview: Octopus Energy on using cloud power to get consumers to flip the switch on renewables
Octopus Energy is on a mission to disrupt the global energy market, and is banking on the AWS cloud and an innovative software licensing agreement to help it do just that Continue Reading
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Aerospace and satellite comms: The next growth frontier for cloud service providers?
Space projects of the near future are less sci-fi and more about driving efficiencies through business intelligence, edge analytics and cloud technologies Continue Reading
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Coronavirus: Weighing up the responses of the public cloud giants to Covid-19
The Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic had a huge impact on the demand for cloud services from enterprises worldwide, but how have the cloud giants fared behind the scenes? Continue Reading
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APAC hybrid cloud adoption still cloudy
Although there are clear benefits of hybrid cloud, enterprises in Asia-Pacific aren’t making the most of them due to a lack of holistic understanding, strategic frameworks and skillsets Continue Reading
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Coronavirus: How Covid-19 has elevated the status of the datacentre industry
The pandemic has served to highlight just how dependent the world is on the datacentre community – and governments, policy-makers and investors are taking note Continue Reading
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David vs Goliath: How the smaller cloud firms have weathered the Covid-19 storm
The toll the coronavirus pandemic has taken on the hyperscale cloud community is well documented, but how have smaller providers fared in the face of soaring demand for their services? Continue Reading
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Keeping the lights on: Managing datacentre engineers through Covid-19
The coronavirus pandemic has seen datacentre engineers reclassified as “essential workers”, but how are their employers ensuring they can continue to do their work in a safe and secure way? Continue Reading
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Changing realities of digital transformation in the public sector
Digitisation of citizen service delivery and government operations has accelerated during the coronavirus outbreak, despite legacy constraints Continue Reading
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Why security validation matters
FireEye’s top executives in Asia-Pacific discuss the benefits of security validation and offer their take on the region’s cyber threat landscape Continue Reading
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Edge computing environments: what you need to know
An edge case in business sits at the limits of what's viable, and edge computing requirements suggest a similar struggle Continue Reading
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The AWS bucket list: Keep your cloud secure
Misconfigured cloud installations risk billions of records being exposed, damaging organisations’ finances and reputations. Paying attention to securing AWS storage buckets is a simple matter Continue Reading
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Alibaba versus Amazon, Microsoft and Google: Does the Chinese cloud challenger have what it takes?
Chinese public cloud challenger Alibaba is undoubtedly making waves in the west, but does it have what it takes to seriously trouble the likes of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft in the infrastructure-as-a-service market? Continue Reading
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Driving adoption: Are high costs putting public cloud out of reach to non-profits?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s insights into the sky-high cloud bills faced by some non-profit organisations prompts questions about whether the public cloud giants should do more to make their services more accessible to the third sector Continue Reading
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Mixing it up: Cloud and datacentre in the new world of IT
Cloud computing has long been tipped as the technology that will displace enterprise datacentres in CIOs’ affections, but that is not quite how the story is playing out Continue Reading
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Big storage meets cloud in the datacentre 'as-a-service' revolution
Cloud is mainstream but the datacentre’s here to stay. This has resulted in a trend towards as-a-service in the datacentre where big storage array makers and the cloud giants meet Continue Reading
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Processors re-imagined: Will cloud and AI lead mean all change in the datacentre?
We look at the changes cloud-native platforms and artificial intelligence could bring about in the datacentre. Continue Reading
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Overcoming the infrastructure and connectivity challenges of cloud gaming
The cloud gaming market has a number of infrastructure challenges to overcome to reach its potential, and the supplier community is intent on helping it address them Continue Reading
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In it to win it: Should AWS consider building out its SaaS play?
Amazon Web Services is the undisputed leader of the public cloud market, but could its relatively small software-as-a-service portfolio be its undoing in years to come? Continue Reading
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From consumer to prosumer: Reducing the datacentre industry’s reliance on the national grid
With the government ramping up plans to go net zero on carbon emissions by 2050, where does the datacentre industry stand – and how can it become more sustainable over the coming years? Continue Reading
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Amazon, AWS and antitrust: How tough could US lawmakers be on the tech titan?
How Amazon conducts its business is coming under close scrutiny from US lawmakers, both from an online retail and cloud perspective, and this is why Continue Reading
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Outsourcing PKI to the cloud: What enterprises need to know
Moving public key infrastructure deployments to the cloud can bring a lot of benefits to IT leaders and their wider organisations, but first they need to make sure doing so is right for them Continue Reading
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Beyond the database: Digging deeper into Oracle’s cloud strategy and its bid to conquer AWS
Oracle has plenty of ground to catch up on in the cloud infrastructure space if it is serious about going toe-to-toe with Amazon, so how does it plan to close the gap? Continue Reading
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Taking responsibility for security in the cloud
From accidental leaks to full-on data breaches, maintaining security across cloud services is becoming a headache for enterprises. What questions should organisations be asking of their cloud service provider and, ultimately, whose responsibility is... Continue Reading
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Overcoming the container security conundrum: What enterprises need to know
Container technologies continue to shake up enterprise IT, but security concerns abound Continue Reading
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Do non-compete clauses risk stifling cloud innovation?
Non-compete clauses in tech employment contracts are commonplace – and understandably so – but could they be limiting innovation in the public cloud? Continue Reading
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McAfee’s push for secure cloud adoption
Organisations must do more to secure their cloud environments as malicious actors increasingly focus their attention on exploiting cloud vulnerabilities, says McAfee Continue Reading
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Locking down the datacentre: A security checklist for IT administrators
As datacentres become increasingy decentralised and the security threats they face increase in number and complexity, IT admins are at risk of becoming overwhelmed as they strive to keep on top of their server farm estates Continue Reading
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EBA outsourcing guidelines: What banks, fintechs and cloud providers need to know
The regulatory landscape for financial services and outsourcing will undergo a refresh this month with new guidance from the European Banking Authority. We look at what banks, fintechs and cloud firms need to do Continue Reading
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Cutting the cord: Negotiating cloud contracts with problematic customers
How accountable should cloud firms be for the actions of the customers that use their platforms, and how much thought should they give to aligning themselves with problematic brands before hosting them? Continue Reading
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Finding a fix for the IT industry's recruitment woes: A datacentre perspective
The datacentre industry is in the midst of a well-documented skills crisis, caused by a mix of sector-specific challenges and some more generalised ones Continue Reading
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Financial services and cloud: Delivering digital transformation in a highly regulated industry
The financial services community has gone from being one of the least likely sectors to adopt cloud to becoming one of its keenest users, as regulator attitudes to using the technology have become more accommodating Continue Reading
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Unpicking the datacentre industry’s complicated relationship with climate change
The energy usage habits of datacentres often see the sector labelled as a contributor to climate change, but the situation is far more nuanced than that, it seems Continue Reading
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Log management: Helping IT admins to achieve infrastructure-wide visibility
When properly configured and deployed, log management tools can unearth a veritable treasure trove of data that IT administrators can use to triage and diagnose problems in enterprise IT infrastructures Continue Reading
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Evolution in action: How datacentre hardware is moving to meet tomorrow’s tech challenges
The datacentre industry is in a state of flux, as new and emerging tech trends highlight hardware and performance shortcomings in legacy sites, prompting operators to rethink how they kit out their facilities Continue Reading
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Cambridge Cognition CTO on applying server monitoring principles to suicide prevention
Cambridge Cognition CTO, Ricky Dolphin, discusses why it pays to think outside the box when trying to find technological answers to business and customer problems Continue Reading
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Evolution in action: The changing face of the datacentre
The role datacentres play in the wider enterprise IT landscape is changing, fuelling the demand for a mix of different types of facilities that are capable of meeting the growing variety of enterprise data-processing requirements Continue Reading
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Exploring UCaaS: The main benefits for enterprises
Getting unified communications-as-a-service right can mean more agility, higher productivity, and cost control Continue Reading
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Employee activism: How staff revolts are shaking up the IT recruitment landscape
As staff at tech giants Microsoft, Google and Amazon continue to speak out about pressing social issues, pressure is growing on firms to better align themselves with their employees on ethics Continue Reading
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Hybrid cloud: Weighing up what to run in the cloud and on-premise
The hybrid cloud model promises a lot, but enterprises really need to take their time when working out what applications and workloads to run where – or they will find themselves on a hiding to nothing Continue Reading
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Uptime and availability: Making sense of supplier SLAs
Enterprises need to read the fine print of supplier service-level agreements (SLA) or risk finding themselves caught short during downtime incidents Continue Reading
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Interview: Rackspace EMEA CTO on why it pays to put people at the heart of IT transformation
Rackspace EMEA CTO Lee James opens up about how taking a people-first approach to digital transformation raises staff morale and engagement levels while helping the managed cloud provider win new business Continue Reading
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Making multicloud work: Is it really worth it?
Enterprise interest in multicloud deployments is on the rise, but with so many moving parts to take care of, will the benefits end up being too hard-fought to make it viable for most enterprises? Continue Reading
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XaaS models are reshaping the future of outsourcing
The outsourcing sector is suffering reputational damage after some high-profile failures, just as companies are turning to the "as-a-service" model instead. Can the two approaches co-exist? Continue Reading
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Protecting your digital assets: Why it pays to invest in cyber insurance
Cyber insurance offers financial protection against the worst happening to a company’s data and digital assets, and is something few businesses can afford to be without Continue Reading
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Competitive threats: What the growth in new public sector cloud frameworks means for G-Cloud
Public sector IT buyers may soon find themselves spoilt for choice when it comes to deciding where to procure their cloud services, thanks to the emergence of several new frameworks, but where does that leave G-Cloud? Continue Reading
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Keeping cloud costs in check: What enterprises need to know
Organisations should not be rushed into moving to the cloud, because doing so could result in mistakes that are costly to put right Continue Reading
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EMIS Group CIO: Breaking down NHS patient data silos by going all-in on AWS
EMIS Group CIO Pete Malcolm is in the throes of a sizeable revamp of the healthcare provider's flagship software system for GPs that will see it go all-in on AWS, while addressing the government's push to make NHS data systems more open and ... Continue Reading
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Room to spare: Could space constraints slow London's record-breaking datacentre growth spree?
The London colocation market enjoyed another record year of growth in 2018, thanks to the hyperscale cloud community's insatiable demand for datacentre capacity. But is the capital running out of space? Continue Reading
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How Europe’s largest datacentre is helping to expand broadband access
NGD, the operator of the largest datacentre in Europe, is playing an unlikely role in helping expand access to full-fibre broadband in south Wales. We find out how, and why Continue Reading