In Depth

In Depth

Enterprise software

• Briefing: Cloud storage performance metrics

  We look at some of the key storage performance metrics that determine what your applications will get from cloud storage, plus cloud essentials that are beyond simple measurement  Continue Reading

• How software developers can create mobile apps securely and quickly

  The mobile app market is booming, but to achieve success, organisations must develop mobile apps securely and rapidly  Continue Reading

• Oracle Fusion cloud applications pathways tend towards pragmatic

  Oracle’s full suite of cloud applications can be a pragmatic step-by-step journey for customers – we look at some examples  Continue Reading

• The beneficial (and frightening) implications of virtualising reality

  The mingling of virtual and physical worlds promises many beneficial and entertaining applications, but there are also some truly worrisome implications of augmented reality  Continue Reading

• Toughening up web and mobile apps

  We look at how organisations can secure internal and web-facing applications against ransomware and injection-style attacks  Continue Reading

• Lakehouse concept aims to merge data lake and data warehouse

  Data lakes are big, amorphous and difficult to access, while data warehouses are costly and aimed at structured data. The data lakehouse aims at analytics in an age of unstructured data  Continue Reading

• Why data and the pandemic are ripping up paper processes

  We explore how the Covid-19 pandemic has forced businesses to rip out traditional paper processes and replace them with end-to-end digitisation  Continue Reading

• Real-time analytics begins to find business vocation

  Continuous real-time analytics, operating at sub-second speed, are finding real-world applicability across industry sectors, such as retail, transport and banking. Their value crux: can businesses act on the signals provided?  Continue Reading

• Cloud storage APIs: What are they and what can be done with them?

  We look at the kinds of application programming interfaces (APIs) available to expose cloud storage to applications, from SME-targeted solutions to higher-end hooks  Continue Reading

• Europe’s proposed AI regulation falls short on protecting rights

  The European Commission’s proposal for artificial intelligence regulation focuses on creating a risk-based, market-led approach replete with self-assessments, transparency procedures and technical standards, but critics warn it falls short of being ...  Continue Reading

• Covid-accelerated recruitment digitisation to gain sophistication with hybrid models

  Recruitment has had to go remote and digital during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis and looks set to fill out and become more sophisticated as hybrid models of working emerge  Continue Reading

• The drive towards computational storage

  The explosion in data is driving demand for faster computing and storage remains a bottleneck – but things are about to change  Continue Reading

• Revolutionising communication and collaboration for the hybrid world

  As hybrid working looks set to become the norm in the post-Covid world, the lessons learned during lockdown will need to be applied. However, firms will have to overcome the limitations of current communication and collaboration tools  Continue Reading

• Where to run containers? Bare metal vs virtual machines

  We look at the key differences between running containers in virtualised environments and on bare metal servers and focus in on the main trade-offs and decision points  Continue Reading

• 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

• Getting ready for the new normal of hybrid working

  Many companies are preparing to return to offices for the first time since the UK’s first lockdown began, but the office environment will look very different to a year ago. With some workers looking forward to returning to the office and others ...  Continue Reading

• What digital transformation means for data storage

  We survey the key planks of digital transformation and look at the storage technologies emerging to support it, such as NVMe and QLC flash, hyper-converged infrastructure and cloud storage  Continue Reading

• Container-native storage: A definition, and what to ask suppliers

  We look at container-native storage – aka cloud-native storage – what defines it, and its benefits as a way of bringing persistent Kubernetes storage to containerised applications  Continue Reading

• The right tech choices for hybrid workers

  Various studies give a mixed reaction to businesses returning to office work, but what is apparent is that support for remote working will continue  Continue Reading

• Computational storage: What is it? Why now, what for, who from?

  Computational storage is an emerging architecture category, in which compute is put near storage to address I/O bottlenecks resulting from large volumes of data  Continue Reading

• 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

• How to support a hybrid workforce

  As the economy opens up, organisations are rethinking the idea of office-based work – and a more flexible approach is on the cards  Continue Reading

• How GCHQ proposes to implement and use ethical AI

  The rise of cyber crime and the escalating threat vectors facing the UK have led GCHQ to invest in automated threat detection and response systems to meet this challenge, as well as liaising with the private sector for the first time  Continue Reading

• Deploying productivity monitoring software ethically

  While software that tracks the activities of staff can be helpful to companies with a remote workforce, managers must consider employees’ concerns and privacy  Continue Reading

• Navigating the sticky issue of monitoring employee productivity

  With employees having shifted en masse to remote working during the pandemic, we explore how enterprises have maintained the productivity of their dispersed workforce  Continue Reading

• How AI and automation drive better customer service

  Forrester analysts explore the benefits of combining artificial intelligence with automation  Continue Reading

• Five reasons to look at hyper-converged infrastructure

  HCI promises easy setup, purchasing flexibility, low procurement and operation costs, reliability and all in one box – but there are challenges too  Continue Reading

• Customer experience market made leap forward during pandemic

  The discipline of customer experience management made significant advances during the Covid-19 crisis, according to practitioners and advocates  Continue Reading

• A bottom-up and top-down look at intelligent automation

  We look at robotic process automation at a coding level and an organisational level, and see how artificial intelligence fits  Continue Reading

• APAC buyer’s guide to HRM software

  In this buyer’s guide, we look at the key considerations when choosing human resource management software to enable workforce resilience, flexibility and agility in the post-pandemic world  Continue Reading

• How the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium sequenced Sars-Cov-2

  Consortium of universities and other institutions has harnessed datasets, analytics and cloud computing to sequence Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, in a blisteringly short time  Continue Reading

• How robotic process automation is getting smarter as it evolves

  Robotic process automation is evolving, adding artificial intelligence layers that render it more resilient and agile. What are its limitations and prospects?  Continue Reading

• Where now for storage? Hitachi, IBM and Pure Storage

  Part II: Storage supplier strategy in the cloud era: Hitachi, IBM and Pure Storage. We snapshot the big six hardware makers, as they take things to the cloud and as-a-service models  Continue Reading

• Data warehouse storage: Has cloud made on-premise obsolete?

  There once was no alternative to building a data warehouse on-premise, but with cloud providers targeting analytics, building data warehouses on-site is looking obsolete  Continue Reading

• Preparing for enterprise-class containerisation

  As more workloads are deployed in containers, IT teams will need to assess how to manage container sprawl, reduce cloud bills and support databases  Continue Reading

• The 3-2-1 backup rule: Has cloud made it obsolete?

  The 3-2-1 backup rule was made for small-scale use in the pre-cloud era when tape still ruled. Is it relevant in the 2020s, or can we repurpose its fundamental principles?  Continue Reading

• Anti-money laundering technology must operate in a collaborative ecosystem

  With new technologies making it easier for banks to spot money laundering activity, we look at why the problem persists at scale, finding that ecosystems and collaborative processes need to be built  Continue Reading

• Containers for a post-pandemic IT architecture

  One of the positive effects of Covid-19 is that it has put IT at the top of the business agenda – and containerisation is part of that strategy  Continue Reading

• India is becoming a hotspot for IoT

  India is set to be a cradle for internet of things deployments thanks to its vibrant economy and its potential to play a bigger role in global manufacturing  Continue Reading

• Ski firm dumps ‘motley’ storage for DataCore software-defined

  Eurogroup cuts power usage by 70% and rackspace from 84U to 7U as it consolidates multiple physical servers and storage protocols onto SANsymphony software-defined storage  Continue Reading

• Amazon Go – is now the right time?

  In the beginning of 2021, Amazon launched a physical store in London, but is it the right time to be investing in offline?  Continue Reading

• Interview: Uber driver Yaseen Aslam on his Supreme Court battle and what’s next for gig workers

  Private hire driver and union organiser Yaseen Aslam speaks to Computer Weekly about his legal battle with Uber and what the UK Supreme Court ruling means to workers in the gig economy  Continue Reading

• AI projects yield little business value so far

  Artificial intelligence has been red hot in recent years, but it is generating precious little business value so far, although World Remit and Virgin Hyperloop have met with some success  Continue Reading

• Being the brand: Virgin takes SD-WAN to the next level

  Companies are increasingly turning to software-defined wide-area networks to address the needs of remote workforces  Continue Reading

• Covid-19 and the art and science of data visualisation

  The pandemic has seen political leaders and civil servants using data visualisation like never before – but there is more to the art than meets the eye  Continue Reading

• How colocation fits alongside a cloud-native architecture

  IT departments are on a cloud-native roadmap to become more agile, but they are constrained by the risks involved in migrating core systems and data  Continue Reading

• Gaurav Dhillon: Silicon Valley is poised to grow up to seize a more spiritual future

  Gaurav Dhillon, co-founder of Informatica and founder CEO at SnapLogic, comes from a generation of Silicon Valley Indian immigrants who followed a scholarship route and have helped to shape the area’s tech companies. Here he reflects on his career ...  Continue Reading

• Data lake storage: Cloud vs on-premise data lakes

  The data lake is a fundamental concept of data management. But what type of storage do you need to build a data lake on and what are the pros and cons of on-premise vs the cloud?  Continue Reading

• Coronavirus: Managing software development during lockdown

  The Computer Weekly Developer Network examines the impact of Covid-19 on the software application development community  Continue Reading

• Trends in collaboration technologies

  Making predictions for anything in these Covid-defined times can leave even the most switched on feeling foolish  Continue Reading

• Three approaches to remote collaboration for home workers

  The coronavirus has led to working from home being the ‘new norm’. We look at how collaboration technologies could work in the long term  Continue Reading

• Five key questions about Kubernetes backup answered

  We look at when to back up containers, what to protect, the main methods of backup for Kubernetes and the main Kubernetes backup products available in the market  Continue Reading

• APAC career guide: How to become a DevOps engineer

  A DevOps career can be highly rewarding, as long as you are open to learning new things and collaborating with team mates to solve problems in software development  Continue Reading

• Five key benefits of AWS, Azure and Google Cloud file storage

  The big three offer cloud file storage that can ease hybrid cloud operations, with consistency between cloud and on-premise as well as greater enterprise application compatibility  Continue Reading

• Cloud DR from the Big Three: Who’s best at what?

  We look at cloud disaster recovery from AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google to see which is best for provision of turnkey solutions, breadth of portfolio and modular building blocks  Continue Reading

• Robin.io aims its Kubernetes storage at databases and big data

  Cloud-native storage runs in Kubernetes and pools storage media to present it to application persistent storage needs, including snapshots and backup on top  Continue Reading

• 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

• Innovation at the shelf edge

  It’s been a challenging year for stores due to Covid-19, but some retailers have found time to innovate at the shelf edge with noteworthy technology deployments  Continue Reading

• How to monitor remote workers humanely

  Monitoring employees who work remotely has taken on a whole extra dimension in the Covid-19 pandemic year of 2020. Financial services firms are among those which suggest ways of doing it humanely and legally  Continue Reading

• Get real: Live streaming analytics important to post-Covid growth, but not without good data

  Live streaming analytics could assume increased importance as a fuel for post-Covid growth, but not without good data  Continue Reading

• Patching: Balancing technical requirements with business considerations

  With an increasing reliance on subscription models alongside the regular patching of software, updates have become an essential part of modern business practices. However, care needs to be taken to ensure the optimum patching process is implemented  Continue Reading

• Extended reality software gets pandemic lift

  Extended reality software is not new, but the Covid-19 public health crisis has seen it take on a new lease of life as organisations face up to virtuality  Continue Reading

• Learning on the job when working from home

  Learning a new job and inducting hires when working from home has been tricky for employees and employers alike. We look at what workarounds have been adopted that could become the post-pandemic normal  Continue Reading

• Five hyper-converged infrastructure use cases to watch

  We look at workloads ripe for hyper-converged infrastructure deployment. These include virtual servers and desktops, SMEs/remote offices, Kubernetes, and analytics and machine learning  Continue Reading

• A tech reboot of retail

  With 2020 having been the toughest year on record for bricks and mortar retailers, we look at some tech innovations that may be heading for the high street  Continue Reading

• Covid-19 crisis has speeded up contact centre digital transformation

  Pandemic has accelerated digital transformation in many business sectors, including contact centres such as those of the University of Huddersfield and UK Power Networks  Continue Reading

• Microsoft Windows’ future is all about users

  We look at how Microsoft is evolving the Windows desktop operating system platform and providing developer flexibility  Continue Reading

• Fix bottlenecks before tackling business process automation

  Business processes evolve over time, and intelligent automation requires a thorough assessment of what is not working optimally  Continue Reading

• Lush’s 25-year journey to digital excellence

  Retailers are increasingly focused on using technology to better serve customers, but for high street cosmetic brand Lush, tech has always been part of the picture  Continue Reading

• How AI is helping to drive business process optimisation

  Automating an inefficient process simply leads to a faster inefficient process. Artificial intelligence needs to be deployed to ensure business processes are optimal  Continue Reading

• SD-WAN keeps Darling Ingredients on the table through Covid-19 pandemic

  For some businesses, the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting need to support mass remote working will have accelerated something they began working on some time ago. Darling Ingredients is one such firm, whose SD-WAN roll-out puts it in good stead ...  Continue Reading

• Cloud RANs offer promise in APAC, but not in near future

  While there is growing interest in cloud-based radio access networks, experts argue that telcos will still cautiously approach the technology in a phased manner  Continue Reading

• Intel Optane Persistent Memory aims to fill the gap DRAM can’t

  We look at Optane and its PMem product that Intel believes will fill a big gap between memory and storage that DRAM technology just cannot deal with  Continue Reading

• How crowd simulation modelling enables organisations to develop social distancing strategies

  Crowd simulation modelling has a role to play in maximising the Covid security of offices and other buildings by facilitating social distancing to help get people back to workplaces  Continue Reading

• Forrester: Why tagging should be used to manage hybrid assets

  With complex hybrid environments, there is a need to apply IT asset management best practices across cloud and on-premise systems  Continue Reading

• Unified file and object storage: The best of both worlds?

  Unified file and object storage tackles growing volumes of unstructured data in a way that’s compatible with traditional and cloud-era applications, and friendlier to analytics  Continue Reading

• BI not BS: how businesses are building futures with data analytics

  Business intelligence software is finding an intensified mission as companies try to forecast beyond the global Covid-19 health pandemic  Continue Reading

• Baking adaptability into the supply chain

  The coronavirus crisis has highlighted the importance of data and automation in supporting an agile supply chain.  Continue Reading

• Robots delivering the goods for retailers

  Amazon is investing in autonomous robot delivery in the UK, adding to pioneering work undertaken by Co-op and Starship Technologies  Continue Reading

• Morrisons and Pret join UK retail’s growing subscription economy

  Morrisons and Pret A Manger join growing UK retail movement towards subscription models – a space frequented by technology-led players such as Gousto  Continue Reading

• UK government coronavirus data flawed and misleading

  Government Covid-19 coronavirus data has been a miasma of inexactitude, often basically flawed and misleading  Continue Reading

• GPT3 could revolutionise how business can use AI

  OpenAI’s language prediction model that produced an essay could be used to deploy cloud resources and improve the quality of chatbots, among other business use cases  Continue Reading

• How the supply chain is handling Covid-19

  Cost-cutting habits have left supply chains chasing their tails in the wake of the pandemic. We take a look at how they’re coping  Continue Reading

• Backup audit: What is a backup audit and why do we need them?

  Backup and recovery are vital components to protect against data loss, whether technical or causes such as ransomware. So how can a backup audit help protect our key assets?  Continue Reading

• Business process automation expansion could founder on IT drift from business focus

  Business process automation might find new territory to expand into as businesses have become bloated with excess processes since the 2008 crash. But has IT drifted out of business alignment again?  Continue Reading

• Covid crisis shifts supply chain management from efficiency to resilience

  Supply chain management seems to be changing profoundly as the coronavirus pandemic unfolds, possibly shifting from an economy of efficiency to resilience, harnessing trading networks, machine learning and robotic process automation  Continue Reading

• Storage analytics: How AI helps storage management

  We look at storage analytics products that measure key metrics in storage hardware, single-vendor and multi-vendor tools, and how AI-based storage management and AIOps is emerging  Continue Reading

• The art of developing happy customers

  AI is playing a growing role in modern software development, but how well can an AI build applications that deliver great customer experience  Continue Reading

• Hangar 51 supports startups taking off in travel tech

  International Airlines Group’s accelerator programme aims to give travel technology companies a flying start in the sector  Continue Reading

• Digital experience management – web content management for the omnichannel age?

  Digital experience management represents an evolution of web content management for a more omnichannel commercial world. We explore its definition and applicability  Continue Reading

• Coding within company constraints

  We find out how containerised microservices and automated testing, combined with effective collaboration and communication, can drive innovation  Continue Reading

• APAC buyer’s guide to BI and analytics

  In this buyer’s guide, we look at the state of adoption of business intelligence and analytics tools, common use cases and other technology and business considerations  Continue Reading

• Cloud storage costs: How to get cloud storage bills under control

  Many organisations look to the cloud to cut storage budgets, but the potential costs are many and varied. So what are the key ways to cut cloud storage costs?  Continue Reading

• Portrait of the software developer as an artist

  Many programmers see themselves as artists – of a sort. Computer Weekly investigates what it means to be a modern software developer  Continue Reading

• How to achieve resilience – the modern uptime trinity

  IT leaders can take responsibility for ensuring their organisations are resilient during times of crisis. There are no quick fixes, but if you think it is expensive to ensure resilience in your IT systems, try frequent failure instead  Continue Reading

• Five on-premise and cloud options for network-attached storage

  We look at five options for file access storage, from ‘traditional’ NAS in a standalone appliance to distributed hybrid cloud file storage and NAS cloud gateways  Continue Reading

• Intelligent ways to tackle cyber attack

  Artificial intelligence-powered security tools should enable IT security teams to achieve more with less  Continue Reading

• Automating IT security

  IT security’s battle with the hacking community has always been a game of cat and mouse, but it’s becoming increasingly automated  Continue Reading

• 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

• How business software can stay clear of digital addiction

  Consumer software is notoriously and deliberately addictive. Should companies and B2B IT emulate that or take the high ground of avoiding the spread of user digital addiction?  Continue Reading