In Depth

In Depth

• Computer Weekly roundtable: Budget for innovation

  At a Computer Weekly roundtable, in association with Dell, IT leaders discussed the balance between spending on maintenance and innovation.  Continue Reading

• Budget for innovation: Case study - standardising Dell

  This case study is part of a Computer Weekly roundtable on budget for innovation where IT leaders discussed the balance between spending on maintenance and innovation.  Continue Reading

• Video: Lords slam 'shocking lack of co-operation' on cyber defences

  There is a "shocking lack of co-operation" between the European Union and Nato in defending member states against cyber attacks, a House of Lords committee has found.  Continue Reading

• Hard drive capacity emphasized over performance for future enterprise hard drives

  An enterprise hard drive can't beat SSDs for performance, so future trends in hard drive technology are focused on higher hard drive capacity using bit-patterned media and heat-assisted magnetic recording.  Continue Reading

• Improving data centre power consumption and efficiency

  Following the opening of hosting provider PEER 1's new data centre in Toronto, the VP of data centre operations offers advice on why tackling energy issues should be a top priority in data centre planning.  Continue Reading

• Case study: compliance with complex construction and multi-disciplinary teams

  I managed a taxonomy project in a large-scale public sector construction project made up of multi-disciplinary teams from well-entrenched institutions like...  Continue Reading

• A guide to developing taxonomies for effective data management

  To make the search and browse capabilities of content, document or records management systems truly functional, we need to develop taxonomies.  Continue Reading

• Interview: John Conoley, CEO of Psion

  John Conoley had his work cut out when he joined Psion in April 2008, tasked with driving change.  Continue Reading

• Swissport swaps Hyperion for open source BI

  Airline services business Swissport has switched from commercially licensed business intelligence software to open source.  Continue Reading

• 02 regains IT control with SOA

  O2, the UK mobile phone company, has turned to an Oracle-based service oriented architecture (SOA) to regain control of applications development and costs.  Continue Reading

• From brains in jars to the corporate tower

  Q&A with John Bates, CTO at Progress.  Continue Reading

• How to define cloud computing terms and technology

  The founder of analyst firm FreeForm Dynamics explains and expands on the numerous definitions used when discussing cloud computing.  Continue Reading

• How to untangle problems

  The digital economy has opened new doors for business through its fusion of digital and material business worlds. It has opened cracks, too, unfilled by traditional product and service offerings, that offer a business home for a myriad of new ...  Continue Reading

• Data storage compliance in the UK

  Learn how to comply with data storage compliance regulations such as the Data Protection Act 1998. We also tell you how to enforce data retention and access policies, and prepare for e-discovery requests.  Continue Reading

• Make PCI DSS compliance easier by reducing scope, outsourcing data

  Many organisations are still struggling with PCI DSS compliance. But there are some ways to ease the burden introduced by PCI DSS. Find out how some experts recommend making PCI DSS compliance easier.  Continue Reading

• Getting up to speed on desktop virtualisation and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)

  According to the founder of analyst firm Freeform Dynamics, 2010 is not a bad time for businesses to get up to speed on VDI.  Continue Reading

• Business analytics make for smarter decisions

  Every business can benefit from becoming more analytical across the board - understanding its customers, performing its operations, and making its decisions. But even the most analytically oriented company needs to target its analytical efforts ...  Continue Reading

• Microsoft ramps up Azure with additional datacentres

  Microsoft is ramping up its Azure cloud computing platform with the opening of two more datacentres, bringing the total to six.  Continue Reading

• EDS report on 'dangerous' Chinook software published for the first time

  Computer Weekly is publishing, for the first time, a technical analysis of the software installed on the Chinook Mk2 helicopter, the Chinook model which featured in the RAF's worst peacetime crash.  Continue Reading

• Is your data secure in the cloud?

  Corporate concerns over data security are holding back cloud computing.  Continue Reading

• The best cloud storage pioneers depended on trust

  The cloud storage market has some startling innovations, such as Nasuni's virtual filer, and cloud archive is a good use case, but time is needed to develop trust in cloud storage.  Continue Reading

• Software licensing - Essential guide

  Software asset management can help IT departments to monitor where software products are being used and ensure they are licensed correctly  Continue Reading

• Fresh air cooling makes HP datacentre super-efficient

  HP's datacentre in Wynyard, near Newcastle, is among the most efficient in the world, thanks to its use of fresh air cooling. Cliff Saran looks at how the facility has been put together.  Continue Reading

• Case study: Bovis Lend lease uses Nightwatchman to support Carbon Reduction Committment

  Project management and construction company Bovis Lend Lease has deployed software which automatically powers down PCs at night, to help it meet its Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC).  Continue Reading

• How to save money by saving energy

  A data centre expert explains the importance of building a green data centre and how to measure power usage efficiency.  Continue Reading

• Unified data storage: Benefits and challenges

  Unified data storage, or multiprotocol storage, provides storage managers with block- and file-based access in one device. However, this doesn't mean it can present the same data at the block and file level.  Continue Reading

• Mobile World Congress: Juniper extends 3G bandwidth

  With LTE and 4G mobile networks set to be the big theme of Mobile World Congress, Juniper Networks is planning to show how operators will be able to prolong the life of existing 3G networks while LTE gets established.  Continue Reading

• Mobile World Congress: Nujira lowers LTE power barrier

  One day 4G networks will enable mobile users to access streaming media in real time over a 100Mbps network. But before the LTE technology on which fourth-generation...

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• Video: YouTube introduces Safety Mode filter

  Google's YouTube video sharing site has in a optional safety mode that filters out "potentially objectionable" content.

  An example of this type of...

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• Maximising the value of unified communications

  So, if the technology, skills and expertise exist to harness the full productivity benefits and potential cost savings of UC, so your people can be contactable and responsive, wherever they are, why do business and IT view the strategic uses and ...  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning services for small and medium size enterprises

  Disaster recovery planning managed in-house can provide small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) with greater flexibility, while outsourcing to a service provider can result in cost savings. But planning is a key requirement.  Continue Reading

• IBM builds water-cooled processor for Zurich supercomputer

  Many people will be sceptical about introducing water cooling into their datacentres, especially at chip level. But this is exactly what IBM's latest datacentre model is based on...  Continue Reading

• Grow your own energy, and someone else's

  Living up to its green credentials, Dutch plans to use the waste heat and CO2 from a datacentre located in the heart of a greenhouse farm are starting to take shape.  Continue Reading

• How technology is improving air traffic control

  Controlling air traffic is one of the world's more stressful jobs. There's the "life and death" element, plus the need for razor-sharp reactions on everything from terrorist attacks to extreme weather. But despite the apparent complexity of the task...  Continue Reading

• Can cloud computing make you greener?

  Although there is little evidence to suggest that cloud computing is intrinsically 'greener' than delivering IT services efficiently in-house, the UK's carbon trading scheme is likely to push organisations down this route anyway.  Continue Reading

• Encryption key management is vital to securing enterprise data storage

  Encryption key management tools enable IT organizations to lock down data on storage media, but difficulties in managing third-party keys and interoperability concerns mean they're in use by only a small percent of UK companies.  Continue Reading

• Aviva uses Web 2.0 to build corporate culture with global reach

  A string of acquisitions and mergers over the past few years turned Aviva into the world's fifth-largest insurance company, but left a heady.  Continue Reading

• Taming datacentre emissions

  Chloride technical support manager Rob Tanzer addresses the hidden costs of datacentre power supply.  Continue Reading

• Taming datacentre emissions - power loss

  It will not surprise many to learn that between 8% and 10% of IT power throughput is typically consumed by the always-on three-phase uninterruptible power...  Continue Reading

• Taming datacente emissions: inefficiencies

  UPS systems are a big capital expenditure, so a degree of future-proofing is usually demanded. UPS systems are therefore often specified with a theoretical...  Continue Reading

• Taming datacentre emissions: flywheels and third-generation UPS

  Chloride routinely detects 450,000 mains power interruptions per month, each capable of bringing servers down and mostly bridged using battery power.  Continue Reading

• How to make a Tier 4 data centre energy efficient

  Top-level data centres rely on technology that can provide the highest availability possible: 99.999% uptime. A Tier IV data centre must have Class A continuous...  Continue Reading

• Code breaker secrets

  The fact that the code breakers at Bletchley had cracked the codes used to encrypt the messages sent to and from the German high command was possibly the...

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• How the Lorenz machine worked

  In answer to Hitler's demand for a machine that produced unbreakable code, the electrical engineering firm Siemens designed and built the Lorenz SZ40.  Continue Reading

• Breaking the World War 2 German encryption codes

  Bill Tutte has been described as one of the most talented code breakers of World War 2.  Continue Reading

• Colossus: The first programmable computer

  Tommy Flowers returned to Bletchley just 11 months later with a working 1,800-valve Colossus Mk I, the world's first fully electronic, semi-programmable...

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• A step-by-step guide to designing an effective data management strategy

  These four steps will help achieve an intuitive data management strategy and improved performance from a virtual environment.  Continue Reading

• Accelerate applications to make your business more agile

  Recent times have seen pressure piled on enterprises to do more with less while reducing complexity and improving management, security and business continuity capabilities. But the trend towards centralising and consolidating IT infrastructures has ...  Continue Reading

• Strategy Clinic: How do I exploit my social network better?

  To make the most of social networking it is important to appreciate where social media is heading, writes Puni Rajah, analyst at TechMarketView....  Continue Reading

• Strategy Clinic: How do I exploit my social networks better?

  To get value out of social networks you need to understand how people use them and what the benefit to them will be.  Continue Reading

• FCoE and IOV: The future of infrastructure

  Understanding Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and I/O virtualisation solutions will help administrators prepare for the virtual data centre of the future.  Continue Reading

• Carbon reduction brings financial benefits

  For some time now, organisations deemed to be high consumers of energy, such as mining and refining, have had to adhere to laws around setting and achieving...  Continue Reading

• Competition: Hardware Haul - send us pics of your gifts!

  Did you get what you wanted for Christmas? Was it shamelessly geeky? If so, then share your haul with us and you could win fifty pounds Amazon vouchers.  Continue Reading

• Virtual disaster recovery: How to take advantage

  Virtual disaster recovery is now a reality, but how can IT professionals take advantage? Find out how to get your systems up and running without investing in additional hardware or remote sites.  Continue Reading

• VDI: How to deliver environmentally sustainable IT

  Combining VDI and UC can drive down power consumption, introduce remote working and therefore reduce carbon footprint, according to this expert.  Continue Reading

• The CIO agenda for 2010

  Many IT leaders will be entering 2010 with bruises on their budgets from the recessionary battering they have taken over the past 18 months.  Continue Reading

• CIO 2010 agenda: Customers and staff

  Historically, the single biggest cost for most organisations has been customer...  Continue Reading

• CIO 2010 agenda: IT innovation

  Recent economic history contains an important lesson for CIOs. Each of the previous three global downturns were marked by the emergence of an innovative,...  Continue Reading

• CIO 2010 agenda: Collaboration and social networking

  For a lot of CIOs, "social networking" suggests users pounding away on Twitter and Facebook and hogging network bandwidth with YouTube and iPlayer video...  Continue Reading

• CIO 2010 agenda: The business of leadership

  CIOs have rarely had a better opportunity to demonstrate the critical role...  Continue Reading

• CIO 2010 agenda: Mobile world

  Each year, mobile technology has improved significantly. So no outlook for 2010 is complete without reference to the role mobile...  Continue Reading

• Social networks offer a new way of sharing knowledge

  The rapid spread of enterprise social networks is still a huge puzzle for most senior managers whose bewilderment at the topic and attempts to make some...  Continue Reading

• Transforming local government IT

  Local government IT leaders face an urgent and fundamental challenge.  Continue Reading

• Extract - Grown-Up Digital: youth culture on the internet

  Chances are you know a young person aged 11-31. You may be a parent, aunt, teacher, or manager. You've seen these young people multitasking five activities at once.  Continue Reading

• Preparing for 4G mobile networking

  Next year is set to see the birth of widespread 4G mobile broadband, so what should enterprises do to prepare themselves for this delivery?  Continue Reading

• Technology review of 2009

  Budgets have been tight, spending has been cut, but the IT industry has not stood still while users tightened their purse strings.  Continue Reading

• Video: Hot handsets for Christmas

  In the market for a mobile? Telecom TV's Leila Makki introduces 2009's hottest handsets for Christmas.  Continue Reading

• Copenhagen summit: How to reduce your IT carbon footprint

  The green credentials of IT industry are set to come under scrutiny at the Copenhagen conference.  Continue Reading

• BT and Cisco team up to host unified comms

  Video: Nick Earle, SVP, Cisco Services, European Markets, discusses the collaboration with BT.

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• Information security face-offs: Marcus Ranum, Bruce Schneier

  Renowned security experts Marcus Ranum and Bruce Schneier square off on today's hot-button information security issues and debates.  Continue Reading

• Taking the complexity out of communications costs

  Large enterprises are no strangers to the benefits of mobility. Deployments of Blackberry handsets, PDAs or other smartphone devices to management, sales or field staff are almost commonplace. But how do you negotiate the best telco deal? Mia ...  Continue Reading

• Best smartphones for business reviewed

  Businesses now have a dizzying variety of smartphones available to them. Consumer handset makers such as Samsung and HTC are now focusing their attentions on the enterprise market.  Continue Reading

• Case study: Haysmacintyre mobilises the enterprise

  UK chartered accountancy firm Haysmacintyre has a number of years' experience in mobilising its enterprise data, communications and people to provide financial and other business support services predominantly for entrepreneurial businesses,.  Continue Reading

• Putting e-mail in the cloud

  As consumers, we are happy to rely on hosted email for our communications needs. As decision-makers in large businesses, we might be naturally more cautious. Fears about security issues, loss of data and service and the ongoing hype around ‘the ...  Continue Reading

• Harnessing the full value of identity management

  Identity management is about more than just access; it’s about delivering the right information to the right people at the right time. Indeed, the power of having an integrated, centralised definition of the roles and data access levels held by each...  Continue Reading

• Bingo! Gamesys' datawarehouse pays for itself in less than a year

  The online gaming group behind Sun Bingo has recovered the costs of a major datawarehouse project within a year after using it to monitor and improve the way it interacts with online punters.  Continue Reading

• CERN's LHC pioneers quantum leap in cloud computing

  The Large Hadron Collider at CERN (the European Centre for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, which was switched back on on the 21 November following an electrical fault.  Continue Reading

• Green IT: How to reduce network energy demands

  Companies are faced with the twin threats of escalating energy prices and customer examination of their green credentials. Meanwhile, the network is always on and always eating power. William Knight investigates the route to green networks.  Continue Reading

• CW+ Premium Content Library

  Computer Weekly's CW+ service offers you in-depth articles, research and case studies to help you in your day-to-day work and decision making.  Continue Reading

• European Commission review and harmonisation of consumer acquis

  Following a review of EU consumer law, the European Commission has published a draft directive entitled the Consumer Rights Directive, which could become law in the UK as early as 2011  Continue Reading

• Locking down mobile security in the enterprise

  With the potential to free staff from the confines of the office and make them more efficient and productive on the move, mobile communications are moving up the corporate agenda. But, while enabling smarter working practices, mobile technologies ...  Continue Reading

• ISACA: Users reject Trusted Computing because of privacy and security concerns

  Why is corporate adoption of the trusted computing standard still very low when over 70% of new computing devices have built-in trusted platform modules (TPMs)?  Continue Reading

• BCS: Cost of support outweighs the benefits

  Why is corporate adoption of the trusted computing standard still very low when over 70% of new computing devices have built-in trusted platform modules (TPMs)?  Continue Reading

• ISSA UK: ‘Treacherous Computing’ can constrain legitimate software

  Why is corporate adoption of the trusted computing standard still very low when over 70% of new computing devices have built-in trusted platform modules (TPMs)?  Continue Reading

• (ISC)2: Users resist limits imposed on their freedom

  Why is corporate adoption of the trusted computing standard still very low when over 70% of new computing devices have built-in trusted platform modules (TPMs)?  Continue Reading

• Unified communications: Pushing your organisation to even greater heights

  IT and communications systems are evolving rapidly in order to offer users the fastest and most efficient tools to do their jobs. Yet these jobs themselves are just as challenging as ever, if not more so. Today’s increasing business pressures and ...  Continue Reading

• Constructing an IT policy for Generation Y

  As technology providers and enterprises study Generation Y and its appetite for advanced technology, CIOs would be well advised to evaluate technologies on their merits, rather than trying to second guess what this future generation of employees ...  Continue Reading

• Three technologies that will reshape desktop computing

  With the Intel Developer Forum behind it, Intel reported third-quarter revenue of $9.4bn, beating analysts' expectations. The company reported operating...

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• Examining new features in storage-area network (SAN) technology

  Ian Lock of GlassHouse Technologies discusses the newest features in storage-area network (SAN) technologies, including data deduplication, thin provisioning and storage tiering.  Continue Reading

• CIO Profile: Joe Harley, Department of Work and Pensions

  Few IT professionals will have been tested as much during the recession as Joe Harley, IT director general and CIO at the Department for Work and Pensions.  Continue Reading

• Case Study: How the Met Office supercomputer offsets its carbon footprint

  When the Met Office's latest £30m supercomputer was switched on in May it drew a fair amount of criticism, and a cloud of suspicion has hung over the organisation's Exeter-based headquarters ever since. Isn't it odd, critics asked, that an ...  Continue Reading

• The EU Telecoms Package explained: Europe stumbles on net neutrality

  Should an internet service provider (ISP) be allowed to block, prioritise or degrade network traffic?

  This issue, otherwise known as...

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• Top five issues in managing unpopular change

  The insidious phrase "headcount reduction" hangs over many business transformation projects like an executioner with a fake tan. Management-speak can't hide the fact that "seeking efficiency improvements through new technology" often translates into...  Continue Reading

• MS Office 2010: what are your options?

  Microsoft Office 2010 is due out in the first half of next year, leading organisations to ask, once again, whether they should stay with the familiar Office suite or opt for an alternative.  Continue Reading

• Structures are a diamond's (and other crystal's) best friend!

  CRYSTALS are objects of profound mystery. That's not because they channel occult energies, or hold misty hints of the future in their limpid depths. Their puzzle is much more prosaic: why are they as they are?  Continue Reading

• The future of digital cameras - memory is the new iris?

  How can image sensors - the most complicated and expensive part of a digital camera - be made cheaper and less complex? Easy: take the lid off a memory chip and use that instead.  Continue Reading

• Shy moon gives up its secrets in a plume

  The first image of lunar material raised by the impact of NASA's LCROSS mission has been released, a week after the impact occurred. It was taken by a spacecraft trailing behind the impactor, whose bird's-eye view allowed it to see what has so far ...  Continue Reading

• E-paper - soon to be of many colours - and video!

  WITH the international launch of Amazon's Kindle reader this week, perhaps electronic books will become the must-have present this year. But even as we unwrap our shiny new e-readers, we may be forgiven for wondering how long it will be before the ...  Continue Reading

• The mediscanner age is upon us

  INTEL's latest microchip technology has created transistors 22 nanometres wide - a mere 200 times the width of a hydrogen molecule. Carving such tiny features is devilishly difficult and expensive, but in another realm of microchips altogether, ...  Continue Reading

• All crash and no plume: Moon crash debris mystery

  In the final minutes of its plunge toward the moon, NASA's LCROSS spacecraft spotted the brief infrared flash of a rocket booster hitting the lunar surface just ahead of it – and it even saw heat from the crater formed by the impact. But scientists ...  Continue Reading