In Depth

In Depth

• The future of the tablet computer in the enterprise

  Tablets come in all manner of profiles and on a variety of platforms – but which will shape up as the workplace favourite of the future?  Continue Reading

• CW500: Is the CIO still as important in 2014?

  Computer Weekly's CW500 Club kicked off this year's meetings with a look at the challenges CIOs will face in 2014  Continue Reading

• Virtualisation and cloud ubiquitous in midrange backup software

  Midrange backup software supports virtual environments and the cloud as a target, but like enterprise products support for mobile devices is largely absent  Continue Reading

• Digital reality: When IT meets the business

  The implications of companies going digital is that technology becomes a core competency to drive the business forward. How will IT adapt?  Continue Reading

• Do you need tablets in your workplace?

  Consumers have shown a massive appetite for tablets, but IT departments have not presented the same level of eagerness  Continue Reading

• The hidden threats facing your unsupported XP devices

  Exorbitant custom support deal fees may not be the highest costs organisations running Windows XP will face after support ends in April.  Continue Reading

• Enterprise backup embraces VMs and cloud, but lags on mobile

  We survey enterprise backup products and find the top five tightly meshed with hypervisors and integrated with cloud, but lacking mobile device support  Continue Reading

• Storage startup survey: Funding tops $1.2bn in 2013

  IPOs are in the air and storage startups are magnets for investors, with $1.2bn of funding flung at flash arrays, hybrid flash, converged storage, cloud and object storage  Continue Reading

• Why computing curriculum fails to light academics’ flame of inspiration

  Roundtable reveals disappointment over computing curriculum and calls for more focus on importance of informal learning  Continue Reading

• How to navigate the IT supplier jungle

  Being a CIO is interesting and satisfying, but there is a relentless pressure on them to improve  Continue Reading

• Big banks' legacy IT systems could kill them

  A banking T-Rex is dying and nimble competitors will pick at its carcass. Is it too late for the retail bank giants to overhaul their IT and survive?  Continue Reading

• Cloudera CTO: enterprise ‘data hub’ is smartphone to data warehouse SLR

  Amr Awadallah is the chief technology officer and a co-founder at Hadoop distributor Cloudera. Here he briefs Computer Weekly on how the supplier is advocating the concept of an ‘enterprise data hub’  Continue Reading

• Failure to migrate from Windows XP could torpedo your business

  As the end of Windows XP support looms, what are the options available to CIOs using applications that run on nothing else?  Continue Reading

• VDI storage basics and persistent versus non-persistent desktops

  A look at the fundamentals of VDI storage and how to specify storage for likely workloads and persistent versus non-persistent desktops.  Continue Reading

• Get ready for the datacentre storm

  With a wave of innovations rolling ever faster towards the datacentre, analysts say 2014 is the year organisations must plot their course through choppy waters  Continue Reading

• SAP execs predict more innovation as economic outlook improves in 2014

  SAP executives are looking to 2014 as a year to establish the supplier’s innovation agenda of in-memory database technology, cloud and mobile  Continue Reading

• Windows XP support will end this year – are you prepared?

  April 2014 marks the point when Microsoft will finally end technical support for Windows XP. What should you do if you can't migrate by then?  Continue Reading

• Minerals firm Imerys upgrades IFS ERP as economy lifts

  Imerys has 30 different ERP systems around the globe. A plan to move to a single instance of ERP, thrown off course by recession, was achieved in 2012; other business benefits have accrued  Continue Reading

• Top 10 information management stories of 2013

  Top 10 information management stories of 2013. Putting analytics to work emerged as the most popular theme, with Tesco, McLaren, and Telefonica Ireland among those leading the data analytics pack  Continue Reading

• Putting software security in the hands of the buyer

  For far too long, businesses have been at the mercy of software suppliers for ensuring that critical applications are secure  Continue Reading

• Next generation hotspots: The future of Wi-Fi?

  A new solution for connecting to wireless hotspots could change the user experience forever. But as Steve Evans points out, there will need to be more collaboration in the telecoms and networking industries before we start to reap the benefits.  Continue Reading

• Internet of things set to unleash deluge of disruption

  Universal connectivity will yield insights in fields as diverse as aviation and hospitality, but will challenge conventional practices.  Continue Reading

• Realising the benefits of a totally connected world

  The internet of things will transform everyday life, from managing airports’ passenger flow to heating buildings and caring for the elderly.  Continue Reading

• BlackBerry Enterprise Server – Should you stay or should you go?

  John Chen’s recent open letter to BlackBerry customers holds many promises for the future  Continue Reading

• Internet of things will drive forward lifestyle innovations

  Internet-connected devices have been predicted to become popular for many years, but have been held back by many issues  Continue Reading

• The pros and cons of putting Wi-Fi into high street stores

  As the high street fights the tide of online shopping, retailers have adopted the ‘digital store’ model – but there are drawbacks for some  Continue Reading

• SMB 3.0 brings enterprise-class storage to Hyper-V deployments

  SMB 3.0 is Microsoft’s replacement for the “chatty” CIFS file access storage protocol that offers enterprise-class storage to Hyper-V deployments  Continue Reading

• SME cloud - blanket security or security blanket?

  Cloud network and security systems could be the answer for SMEs looking for enterprise-level services on a small-business budget  Continue Reading

• How the datacentre market has evolved in 12 months

  The increasing interest in co-location, hosting and cloud has led to murmurings around the death of in-house datacentres  Continue Reading

• Optimising application performance with flash storage

  At a Computer Weekly roundtable, IT leaders heard how Cancer Research UK achieved a 30% improvement in application performance  Continue Reading

• Optimising performance and security of web-based software

  On-demand applications are often talked about in terms of how suppliers should be adapting the way their software is provisioned to customers.  Continue Reading

• Procter & Gamble uses Teradata cloud analytics for global marketing

  Procter & Gamble has 15,000 websites, but sells almost exclusively through retailers. This makes gathering intelligence on customers tough  Continue Reading

• Future Gazing: The Future of IT in 2020

  The next six years will see the influence of technology accelerate, and that will mean radical changes for the role of the IT department and the CIO  Continue Reading

• Keep your software healthy during Agile development

  Developers have adopted agile methods to keep up with the pace of the market, but how can they ensure code stays in good shape?  Continue Reading

• PCIe SSD flash storage roundup: The few become fewer

  The PCIe flash storage, or server-side flash, market is one dominated by a few in which the big six array makers don’t get a look-in  Continue Reading

• Why agile development races ahead of traditional testing

  Traditional testing practices optimise large, centralised testing but struggle to support the rapid delivery of agile development.  Continue Reading

• How to finance next year's IT programme

  Finance and insurance firms are beginning to tailor products and services specifically targeted at CIOs and IT procurement teams.  Continue Reading

• Financing IT purchases

  There are a number of ways a new IT platform can be acquired but choosing the right method for your business is key.  Continue Reading

• Big data storage: Hadoop storage basics

  Hadoop changes the game for enterprise storage. We look at how Hadoop crunches big data, its key storage requirements and survey the vendors  Continue Reading

• Failure to invest in sentiment analytics could lead to brand damage

  Early adopter companies in retail and investment banking are exploring social media sentiment analytics  Continue Reading

• Tryg and Scottish Widows improve customer response with analytics

  Tryg Insurance uses Portrait, and Scottish Widows Oracle CRM on-demand to better analyse customer behaviour, reduce churn, and increase revenue  Continue Reading

• BAE builds the business into ERP team for Infor implementation

  BAE Systems Military Air and Information is upgrading and unifying seven ERP systems, with a project team mostly from the business  Continue Reading

• Find, keep and grow IT talent

  IT specialists with well-rounded expertise in emerging technologies are vital to any business. How do you get recruitment right?  Continue Reading

• After Prism revelation there is nowhere to hide

  UK business should not ignore revelations about the US Prism internet surveillance programme.  Continue Reading

• Make a high-performance computing and high-availability datacentre

  High performance computing and high availability systems are no longer limited to engineers and scientists. But is your datacentre ready?  Continue Reading

• High street stores embrace digital to entice customers

  Customers are using technology in favour of the high street, but some stores are fighting fire with fire.  Continue Reading

• Closing technology gaps for human resource departments

  A gap is appearing between the promise of cloud-based talent management technologies and the value those technologies deliver.  Continue Reading

• Big storage turns the tide in the hybrid flash array market

  The hybrid flash array market has been all about startups, but has the tide turned with EMC’s re-architecting of its VNX line for flash?  Continue Reading

• The perfect storm comes to talent management

  It is one of the most important areas of business, but talent management has been largely ignored by the IT industry – until now  Continue Reading

• The technology behind Birmingham NEC

  The NEC exhibition centre's IT director reveals how a £40m investment from Birmingham City Council has been spent  Continue Reading

• How Capgemini keeps its Merlin datacentre green and energy-efficient

  Capgemini's Swindon-based Merlin datacentre is one of the most energy-efficient in the world. But what makes it green?  Continue Reading

• Flash caching software market roundup

  Flash storage cuts latency and boosts IOPS, but can’t do the job alone; flash caching software is needed to target the blocks that need it most  Continue Reading

• Collaboration is key in enterprise security puzzle

  Collaboration is key to security, cyber security professionals told attendees of Trend Micro’s customer event in London  Continue Reading

• How to choose a file sync and share tool that fits

  Forrester analysts Rob Koplowitz and Ted Schadler document the experiences of early adopters of file sync and share services.  Continue Reading

• A guide to WebRTC

  Real-time communications standards aim to help more users speak with ease over the internet. Computer Weekly looks at how the systems work  Continue Reading

• Skillpages develops DataStax Cassandra to rank trades with NoSQL

  How do you find a good tree surgeon you can trust because he or she has been recommended by someone in your social circle?  Continue Reading

• Basho CTO Justin Sheehy describes NoSQL movement as ‘Cambrian’

  Justin Sheehy (pictured), CTO at NoSQL database company Basho, describes the NoSQL movement as ‘Cambrian’  Continue Reading

• Cyber insurance: Understanding the legal language

  CROs worried about cyber risk are increasingly turning to cyber insurance to offset risk. But is the cover as black and white as it first seems?  Continue Reading

• Being able to collaborate in the cloud is vital for business

  Cloud-based storage systems offer all employees the chance to work on a ‘live’ document but carry their own security risks.  Continue Reading

• How to make your datacentre BYOD-ready

  BYOD is changing how employees interact with corporate data. Datacentre managers should follow these steps to prepare their infrastructure for BYOD  Continue Reading

• 802.11ac: Inside the heart of state of the art

  Computer Weekly explains the new 802.11ac wireless standard and whether it is ready for businesses to adopt  Continue Reading

• VMworld Europe User Awards 2013 open for entries

  The VMworld Europe User Awards 2013 is now open for entries. Read the criteria and find out how to submit here.  Continue Reading

• Best of VMworld Europe User Awards: Entry Criteria

  All the information you need to know for the VMworld Europe User Awards.  Continue Reading

• VMware and Hyper-V virtual machine disaster recovery

  VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V have a number of features aimed at virtual machine disaster recovery. Computer Weekly surveys some of the key hypervisor features for data protection  Continue Reading

• The IT industry must come clean on software licensing

  Businesses are accused of software piracy if there is a licence shortfall, but software companies are making it difficult for IT departments to comply.  Continue Reading

• Shining a light on The OpenDaylight Project

  Steve Evans looks at the progress so far of the software defined networking (SDN) consortium and its effects on the networking industry  Continue Reading

• Cloud file-sharing for enterprise users

  Cloud file-sharing services have become near-ubiquitous among enterprise users. We survey the risks, benefits and alternatives to Dropbox  Continue Reading

• iSCSI switch selection and configuration

  iSCSI switch selection means looking out for the type of features that matter to iSCSI SAN traffic. We run the rule over the iSCSI switch market to see what’s available  Continue Reading

• CIO Interview: James Thomas, UCLH

  James Thomas, director of ICT at UCLH, talks about branching out into new mobile devices and embracing MDM and apps  Continue Reading

• Data discovery tools open up new vistas for healthcare informatics

  The newer generation of BI tools, often called ‘data discovery’ software, is opening up new vistas in healthcare informatics. Orlando Agrippa, QlikView enthusiast and NHS health BI leader proselytises  Continue Reading

• Top 10 Android security tips

  As Android becomes more prevalent in the enterprise, Computer Weekly gives you 10 top tips for keeping your devices secure  Continue Reading

• Forrester: Control over your software assets has become a must

  Despite the rising importance of software asset management, there is a lack of sufficient attention and funding being devoted to it.  Continue Reading

• VPNs: The past, present and future

  We give you a rundown of all you need to know about virtual private networks and how the cloud is changing their future  Continue Reading

• Public sector IT procurement, G-Cloud and the SMEs

  Is the government's intent to widen public sector IT procurement to include SMEs and its G-Cloud diktat improving SME-government engagement?  Continue Reading

• The battle for the cloud

  Pure cloud providers have changed the game and traditional mega-suppliers must fight to keep up.  Continue Reading

• Well-managed software for flexible and resilient IT

  Managing software assets is vital for maintaining a flexible and up-to-date IT platform. We look at best practices for software asset management  Continue Reading

• EU open data promotion could benefit UK economy, says CEBR

  The EU’s moves towards an open data directive will create 58,000 jobs in the UK and add £216bn to the economy  Continue Reading

• The University of Nottingham innovates with wireless

  The University of Nottingham's IT director and project manager tell Computer Weekly how partnering with BT for its wireless network has opened up even more opportunities for students and staff  Continue Reading

• Data-driven innovation

  Still in the early adopter phase, some shining examples of predictive analytics demonstrate the potentially enormous benefits it can deliver.  Continue Reading

• How to plan and manage datacentre redundancy

  Provisioning of a datacentre to survive a range of failure scenarios has become critical for many businesses. Here's a datacentre redundancy plan  Continue Reading

• What is stopping the NHS rolling out Wi-Fi access?

  With only a third of NHS Trusts offering Wi-Fi to their patients and visitors, what is holding up the roll-out of Wi-Fi technology?  Continue Reading

• A business case for games play at work

  How businesses can use computer games techniques to motivate staff at work  Continue Reading

• Virgin Media uses ETAdirect to manage engineers more predictively

  Virgin Media is using predictive analytics to get the right engineer out to the right problem. It believes its use of TOA Technologies cloud-based ETAdirect system gives it a competitive advantage  Continue Reading

• Flash array market roundup: The startups

  Startups have led the flash array fray, despite the efforts of the big suppliers. We examine the startup vanguard in the flash storage revolution  Continue Reading

• CW500: The rise of the machines – how devices are taking over the internet

  By 2020, there will be a trillion sensors sending data over the internet  Continue Reading

• Big data journalism exposes offshore tax dodgers

  How journalists harnessed big data to challenge offshore financial secrecy  Continue Reading

• An introduction to cyber liability insurance cover

  Cyber liability insurance cover has been around for 10 years, but most security professionals seem to have not heard of it or know that it exists  Continue Reading

• Huddle vaunts enterprise collaboration as productivity engine

  Cloud-based enterprise collaboration company Huddle has won plaudits from customers including the Care Quality Commission. Last month it was a Computer Weekly European Enterprise Software winner  Continue Reading

• Anglian Water opens floodgates for external data

  The water company has overhauled its data systems to efficiently manage and share information to benefit staff, customers, partners and regulators  Continue Reading

• CIO interview: Mark Austin, Bedford Hospital

  A CIO with 18 years' NHS experience, on whether paperless can be achieved by 2018 and how wireless technology is helping his Trust  Continue Reading

• Big data storage choices

  Big data storage demands capacity and processing/IOPS performance and a range of choices exist such as scale-out NAS, object storage, hyperscale and hyper-converged storage  Continue Reading

• Good data management cuts costs and boosts compliance

  Organisations can gain value from data by learning how to create information – and subsequently knowledge – from it.  Continue Reading

• Aston Martin: High-tech design for iconic cars

  We visit the Aston Martin factory to find out how the luxury car maker is embracing technology across the business  Continue Reading

• LUN storage management for vSphere and Hyper-V

  LUN storage partitioning has been transformed with the advent of virtualisation. Find out how it differs between VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V implementations  Continue Reading

• By 2020, cloud will be ‘like having a Formula 1 team running IT’

  Commodity, on-demand IT will disrupt the market to create new ways of doing business, continuous innovation and ‘Formula 1 standard’ engineers  Continue Reading

• Look to the cloud to help you offer your products and services on demand

  By using cloud, small firms can take advantage of IT capabilities enjoyed by big companies, and big companies can be more agile  Continue Reading

• Find out what the customer wants and deliver it effectively

  Consumers want to be able to buy something on their smartphones, without having to turn on a PC. If they have a happy and efficient experience, strong loyalty will result – and they might tell others via social media  Continue Reading

• Engaging with customers in whichever way they choose

  As we share more data about ourselves, companies that use technology in a smarter way to engage with customers will be the ones to succeed  Continue Reading

• Power in the palms of their hands: serving the customers of the future

  Customer information is provided at every touch in our socially enabled lives. By 2020, everything will be known about us  Continue Reading

• Getting the measure of collecting data for a future of personalised service

  Businesses that know about their customers have always been able to use that data to offer a bespoke service - big data brings new opportunities  Continue Reading