In Depth

In Depth

• BP stresses importance of apprentices to its DevOps and digital transformation plans

  BP explains why IT apprentices are central to the success of its agile and DevOps ambitions, as well as its wider digital transformation programme  Continue Reading

• Enterprise wireless: trends and developments in 2017

  What will be the main developments in wireless this year and what challenges will this bring to enterprises?  Continue Reading

• Blockchain starts to prove its value outside of finance

  Technology behind bitcoin is being adopted in supply chains, power networks and even to support independent musicians  Continue Reading

• All-flash storage ready for primetime in Australia

  On-premise and cloud-based flash arrays that offer big improvements over spinning disks are making a splash down under  Continue Reading

• How will the network manager’s role change in the SDN world?

  We explore how traditional network managers are changing the habits of a lifetime as SDN remakes the enterprise network  Continue Reading

• Time to restore from backup: Do you know where your data is?

  Making a backup is only the start of the process. You must be sure you can restore, that backups contain what you need, and that they will work with the applications that need them  Continue Reading

• Inside the well-planned metro network: how CityFibre does it

  Computer Weekly met metro network builder CityFibre to find out why, and how, the organisation believes it can mount a credible challenge to Openreach’s dominance of wholesale fibre  Continue Reading

• Australian startups find their way in the cloud

  Public cloud services have empowered Australian startups to scale up and go global from day one  Continue Reading

• How CIOs can apply IT supplier management skills to digitisation

  The digital supply chain can be managed in much the same way as the software supply chain, where CIOs have gained expertise in working with multiple providers to effectively run a complex ecosystem  Continue Reading

• Flash: it’s not all over yet

  We look at the need for new approaches to storage as ever-increasing demands are placed on all-flash arrays  Continue Reading

• How composable applications can improve software development

  We speak to experts in the field of software development about the pros and cons of componentising application software  Continue Reading

• Why there is more to digital than ones and zeros

  These days no business strategy seems complete unless it is qualified by the adjective “digital”  Continue Reading

• AI automation starts to transform legal profession

  Artificial intelligence and automation are making inroads into legal work, but are more likely to support than displace lawyers and will draw IT more into legal service delivery  Continue Reading

• The rise of the machines

  Artificial intelligence in various forms is not a panacea for every problem, but it can help enterprises fend off cyber attacks and get better at what they do  Continue Reading

• Silicon Valley startups aim to make big data capture and prep slicker

  A group of California-based startup and early-stage data analytics and management companies are bidding to make big data, including sensor data, more tractable for analysis  Continue Reading

• Storage systems evolve to meet need for speed

  The race is on to develop revolutionary storage-class memory products to meet rocketing data processing requirements  Continue Reading

• Storage performance 101: Server, array and fabric/network basics

  We look at the key performance attributes of storage media in use today, and the choices and basic tuning steps you can take to get the most from your storage  Continue Reading

• MWC 2017: How virtual reality could be the next big thing for healthcare

  Consumer virtual reality was again a hot topic at Mobile World Congress in 2017, but the technology is now advanced enough that use cases are emerging in other sectors. The IEEE’s Wendy Powell reveals how virtual reality could transform healthcare  Continue Reading

• Can you work around SAP indirect access software licensing?

  The SAP legal case against Diageo highlights the seemingly arbitrary rules governing software licensing  Continue Reading

• Q&A: From backup to data management

  Beyond data backup, extracting more metadata to improve business processes and data management will become more important, says a senior Veritas executive  Continue Reading

• CW500: GDPR compliance should be at the top of your agenda

  At the latest CW500 club, experts discussed how to make sure your organisation is ready for GDPR compliance, how it will affect the business and what it actually means  Continue Reading

• Build mobile experiences that drive engagement

  Mobile experiences throw open the door to new opportunities for firms to win, serve and retain customers  Continue Reading

• Storage 101: Object storage vs block vs file

  We recap the key attributes of file and block storage access and the pros and cons of object storage, a method that offers key benefits but also drawbacks compared with SAN and NAS  Continue Reading

• APAC banks warming up to big data

  Financial institutions in the APAC region fear they may be left behind if they don’t embrace big data  Continue Reading

• DevOps done right: Why work-life balance matters to digital transformation success

  DevOps practitioners warn enterprises off neglecting the health and well-being of the IT staff responsible for delivering their digital transformation projects  Continue Reading

• Making mobile apps work

  Mobile users have high expectations, and there is no such thing as one size fits all. We look at how this affects mobile app development  Continue Reading

• At IBM’s Watson lab, customers marry the power of AI with the IoT

  IBM formally inaugurated its Watson Internet of Things headquarters in Munich, Germany in February, and Computer Weekly went to meet the customers and partners who are using Watson AI to deliver on the promise of the IoT  Continue Reading

• RAID vs erasure coding for flash storage

  Flash storage needs array data protection. We run the rule over RAID for flash storage and look at erasure coding, which will become more attractive as drive sizes increase  Continue Reading

• Backup datacentre power: Using diesel generators to plug the UK's energy supply gaps

  Energy market stakeholders are calling on the datacentre community to help them close the UK's energy demand and supply gap by hooking up their diesel generators to the National Grid, but will it work?  Continue Reading

• Australia a hotbed for data analytics

  Market for technologies that help organisations make sense of vast volumes of data is hotting up Down Under  Continue Reading

• Brexit might benefit genomics big data analytics research

  Genomics, an IT-dependent area of medical science research, could yet benefit from Brexit by lower barriers to data acquisition  Continue Reading

• The changing shape of mobile apps

  We find out how organisations can gain the agility they need to keep pace with mobile app innovation  Continue Reading

• Software asset management maturity in the age of SaaS

  For asset tracking, software as a service is no different from any other type of software licensing – but the process of software asset management needs adapting  Continue Reading

• Big data projects need business input and careful management

  Big data projects need to be managed. Ocado and Graydon have been figuring out how  Continue Reading

• Cloud contracts are still a minefield

  Cloud computing is maturing in the enterprise space, but the contracts that underpin cloud services have not evolved at the same pace  Continue Reading

• Private cloud: Orchestration, storage and containers

  We look at the key requirements and components of private cloud – including the use of container platforms – and the impact of private cloud on storage in the datacentre  Continue Reading

• Breaking the cyber kill chain

  Traditional antivirus is no longer good enough for fileless malware attacks that don’t leave a trace  Continue Reading

• New model datacentres require hybrid approach

  CIOs must marry legacy datacentre infrastructure with the agility of public and private cloud environments  Continue Reading

• Successful CIOs in 2017 will be those who look outwards

  CEOs increasingly want IT leaders who can look outside the IT department and improve wider perceptions of the organisation  Continue Reading

• CIOs must become hybrid IT and digital leaders to avoid becoming unfashionable

  It looked for a while that CDOs would replace CIOs, but organisations are realising that what they need is a mix of both roles  Continue Reading

• Saab CIO Mats Hultin says be open, flexible and agile – or die

  Saab CIO Mats Hultin is directing the Swedish defence company’s IT function globally to be streamlined and standardised, but open and flexible for a future that includes the internet of things  Continue Reading

• How artificial intelligence is powering retail customer experience

  Retailers are beginning to explore how cognitive computing and AI could make e-commerce smarter and more personalised  Continue Reading

• DevOps done right: Creating a collaborative and supportive business culture

  Cultivating a supportive and collaborative business culture is considered central to getting DevOps to take hold in an organisation. We take a look at what this entails  Continue Reading

• Storage 101: Queue depth, NVMe and the array controller

  We look at queue depth and fan-out and fan-in ratios. With NVMe they could become a thing of the past, but for now there’s still a bottleneck at the storage array controller  Continue Reading

• Moore’s Law is running out – but don’t panic

  Can system performance continue to improve to cope with the burgeoning needs of datacentres  Continue Reading

• NVMe: PCIe card vs U.2 and M.2

  We talk NVMe form factor choices – add-in card vs U.2. vs M.2 – and their uses, for primary storage or cache, with Server StorageIO founder and analyst Greg Schulz  Continue Reading

• Hybrid cloud strategy offers best of both worlds

  More and more businesses are adopting a hybrid cloud strategy for their datacentre needs. Computer Weekly looks at what’s on offer  Continue Reading

• Challenges of complying with the Investigatory Powers Act

  Despite opposition by civil liberties groups and technology companies, the UK government has passed the controversial Investigatory Powers Act, adding a host of security and contingency requirements that UK businesses need to consider  Continue Reading

• No silver bullet for business IoT security

  Good application design, adapting existing IT security and adopting some new ideas can protect firms from IoT threats  Continue Reading

• Hybrid cloud 101: Using the cloud as a storage tier

  We look at what’s possible when it comes to hybrid cloud, what types of data and what hybrid cloud architectures can combine on-premise and cloud storage capacity  Continue Reading

• How culture change has to underpin success in digital transformation

  Digital transformation has been in vogue in recent years. Success depends as much, if not more, on deep-set culture change, as RSA and The Economist Group have discovered  Continue Reading

• Backup 101: Incremental vs differential vs synthetic full backup

  Backup methods pros and cons: Full, incremental, differential, synthetic full, incremental forever, and reverse incremental. We set out the advantages and drawbacks of each  Continue Reading

• How information security professionals can help business understand cyber risk

  Information security is continually moving up business and board agendas, but information security professionals find it challenging to help business leaders to understand fully the cyber risks across increasingly digital businesses.  Continue Reading

• Meet IoT security challenges head-on

  Securing internet-connected devices should be a priority for IT leaders. We pinpoints the key areas that need to be targeted  Continue Reading

• There is no shortage of open data. The question is, is anyone using it?

  The UK government’s data portal, Data.gov.uk, currently shows 36,552 published datasets available, but how usable are they, and is anyone downloading them?  Continue Reading

• Secure IoT before it kills us

  Experts say more must be done to mitigate the potentially catastrophic threats presented by connected devices  Continue Reading

• 3D-Nand boosts capacity to push all-flash datacentre

  3D-Nand piles flash cells on top of each other to tackle some of the scalability problems of flash storage, and is all set to help achieve the all-flash datacentre  Continue Reading

• Computer Weekly Buyer's Guide features list 2017

  Here is a schedule of up-and-coming in-depth articles that will cover carefully selected topics to help IT leaders select the right technology for their organisation  Continue Reading

• CW500: The journey to successful enterprise collaboration

  Implementing a mobile collaboration strategy may give your organisation a huge boost in morale and productivity, but it’s not easy to achieve  Continue Reading

• Windows cracks under data access demands

  The operating system fights for survival as workers demand cross-platform access to corporate data  Continue Reading

• NVMe over fabrics vs Fibre Channel, Ethernet, Infiniband

  NVMe over fabrics takes the built-for-flash advantages of the PCIe-based protocol, and allows NVMe to be sent via Fibre Channel, Ethernet and Infiniband networks  Continue Reading

• Navigate to unified workspace success

  To remove barriers to workforce mobility, CIOs need to deliver the right apps and information to the right user, on the right devices  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery testing: technology systems to test DR

  In this concluding part of a two-part series, Computer Weekly looks at ways of testing disaster recovery plans, with methods including array-based replication and hypervisor-based approaches  Continue Reading

• What happens to data protection when we leave the EU?

  The UK was a keen participant in the formulation of new data protection laws for the European Union, but its electorate has since voted to leave the EU. How is that likely to affect data protection in the UK once Brexit is accomplished?  Continue Reading

• End user devices require careful orchestration

  Options for access to IT have soared since the desktop PC’s heyday, and organisations must conduct a balancing act  Continue Reading

• Storage briefing: NVMe vs SATA and SAS

  NVMe brings blistering performance gains over existing HDD-era disk protocols, and is a straight swap-in for PCIe server-side flash with array and hyper-converged products on the way  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery testing: A vital part of the DR plan

  Disaster recovery provision is worthless unless you test out your plans. In this two-part series, Computer Weekly looks at disaster recovery testing in virtualised datacentres  Continue Reading

• Future of the server operating system

  We look at the evolution of the server operating system, and how the next generation is moving into the cloud  Continue Reading

• Looking beyond PUE to assess the true environmental impacts of datacentre growth

  Sustainability experts want operators to look beyond the accepted datacentre metrics to assess the impact the industry's growth is having on the environment  Continue Reading

• Linux versus Unix hot patching

  We examine the current state of play in the ongoing competition between the Linux and Unix server operating systems  Continue Reading

• Self-driving cars could be steered towards business use cases

  The real value of autonomous vehicles could lie in industrial applications. We take a test drive around Milton Keynes to find out  Continue Reading

• Software-defined storage: The pros and cons, and what is available

  Software-defined storage is a rapidly rising trend in the datacentre, but what are the advantages and disadvantages of building your own storage, and is it suitable for all organisations?  Continue Reading

• Value chain mapping – making sense of executive strategy

  In this first excerpt from his book on value chain mapping, Simon Wardley explains why business leaders need to understand the importance of maps for corporate strategy  Continue Reading

• Value chain mapping – exploring the map

  In the third and final excerpt from his book on value chain mapping, Simon Wardley explains how maps can determine future business strategy  Continue Reading

• Value chain mapping – finding a path

  In the second extract from his forthcoming book, Simon Wardley explains how to draw a map to describe the changing nature of your business  Continue Reading

• Shining a light on the enterprise appeal of multi-cloud deployments

  With market watchers predicting that enterprises will increasingly favour the use of multiple cloud providers, we take a look at what is driving the trend, and its drawbacks  Continue Reading

• Using cross-industry collaboration on open standards to address big data in the datacentre

  Efforts are under away across the industry to create open standards to ensure datacentre hardware is equipped to cope with the amounts of information datacentres are required to process in real time  Continue Reading

• The cyber threats lurking within every company

  Insider threats have been around for a long time, but it is only recently that people have begun to acknowledge the true danger they pose  Continue Reading

• CIO interview: Alan Crawford, City & Guilds Group

  Four months into his role as CIO of City & Guilds, Alan Crawford opens up about the challenges of tending to the needs of a company that has hit the acquisition trail with aplomb in recent years  Continue Reading

• Pioneers take flash storage to analytics and big data use cases

  Flash storage is now being applied to big data and analytics workloads as array makers exploit flash performance for rapid access and high throughput for big datasets  Continue Reading

• How enterprise software development is changing

  During Computer Weekly’s 50th anniversary event, we held a panel discussion at Skills Matter in London to look into how enterprise software is changing  Continue Reading

• NFV helps telcos save money on WAN infrastructure

  Telecoms providers are optimising their services through network function virtualisation,. How does this affect your network strategy  Continue Reading

• How to beat Oracle licence audits

  An eight-step guide to tame the Oracle auditors. Don't take the bait...  Continue Reading

• A Good American: Surveillance, 9/11 and the NSA

  Computer Weekly sat down to watch Friedrich Moser's documentary about the NSA whistleblower Bill Binney - A Good American  Continue Reading

• How to add network flexibility by using NFV

  Fixed network architectures can no longer cope with today’s networking needs  Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged vs shared storage for SMEs

  The rise of hyper-converged infrastructure – with compute, storage and networks in one box – seems ideal for SMEs, but is it always a better idea than traditional IT architecture?  Continue Reading

• Neutron’s role evolves in OpenStack networks

  We examine the progress of Neutron, OpenStack’s cloud networking module  Continue Reading

• Docker storage: how to get persistent storage in Docker

  Docker, by default, doesn’t come with persistent storage, which presents an issue to some workloads customers that want to run in containers – however, there are ways to achieve persistent storage  Continue Reading

• Open source storage hits the mainstream

  Open source storage has gained mainstream acceptance in high performance computing, analytics, object storage, cloud (OpenStack) and NAS use, but can it crack the enterprise?  Continue Reading

• Infosecurity – the GCHQ way

  Balancing privacy and security requires highly developed information security policies and, of the UK intelligence agencies, GCHQ has taken the lead.  Continue Reading

• On-premise IT still the only way to run certain tasks

  How to augment a public cloud strategy with on-premise IT by running workloads in a private cloud and bursting to the public cloud  Continue Reading

• Cutting the cable: why industry is turning to wireless

  Wireless networking technology is heading out of the office and the living room, and on to the factory floor. We explore the trend  Continue Reading

• Interview: British Medical Journal’s CDO talks datacentres, DevOps and desktops

  BMJ’s chief digital officer explains how the 170-year-old healthcare publication has negotiated several major digital transformation projects since she joined in 2012  Continue Reading

• Why more people aren’t cloud bursting

  The appeal of cloud bursting is easy to see, but the level of complexity involved negates its benefits – at least for now  Continue Reading

• Lauri Love: the student accused of hacking the US

  How did a brilliant but fragile computer science student from a rural English town end up facing life imprisonment in the US? Computer Weekly speaks to Lauri Love  Continue Reading

• The pros and cons of cloud bursting

  The much-vaunted benefits of cloud computing can be overshadowed by portability and interoperability issues  Continue Reading

• Computer Weekly at the movies: Werner Herzog takes on the internet

  Computer Weekly sat down to watch Werner Herzog’s latest documentary on the internet, Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World  Continue Reading

• Master data management gains ground in UK public sector

  Local authorities and NHS organisations in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland are making slow but sure progress with master data management technology to gain a single view of the citizen  Continue Reading

• [email protected]: Networks replace hierarchies – how IT changed society

  The first issue of Computer Weekly in 1966 predicted huge social changes from IT – but what has really changed in 50 years?  Continue Reading

• Blockchain and the promise of cooperative cloud storage

  Blockchain technology allows distributed retention of encrypted data and is at the heart of cooperative cloud storage  Continue Reading