In Depth

In Depth

• How can enterprises avoid datacentre supply chain issues affecting IT upgrades?

  With analysts predicting that the current datacentre component shortages could last for at least two years, CIOs are being advised to act now to prevent the situation affecting their IT upgrade plans  Continue Reading

• Mining for intelligence: Why business process intelligence makes for agility

  Business process improvement is a never-ending quest for betterment that can be lit up by a new generation of process mining software. We take a deep dive  Continue Reading

• Immutable snapshots aim to neutralise ransomware

  Snapshots – usually immutable anyway – get functionality to stop ransomware intruders moving or deleting snapshots, so customers know they have clean copies of data to restore from  Continue Reading

• How in-store technology is supporting retail’s sustainability agenda

  Boots, Costa Coffee and the major grocers’ in-store technology focus is switching towards systems supporting sustainability goals  Continue Reading

• IT’s role in sustainability for a resilient supply chain

  A circular economy is among the long-term measures needed to combat climate change. This requires data transparency across supply chains  Continue Reading

• Online Safety Bill puts user protection onus on platform providers

  The Online Safety Bill will place new duties and responsibilities on online platforms accessible from the UK, but as it currently stands, it contains several grey areas  Continue Reading

• Five ways the hyper-converged infrastructure market is changing

  We look at changes in the hyper-converged infrastructure market as suppliers go cool, go soft, disaggregate HCI nodes, provide as-a-service options and look to containers  Continue Reading

• How software can help clean up emission-intensive industries

  The potential to reduce emissions by making heavy industries and commercial buildings more efficient using software is immense. We explore the field  Continue Reading

• Retail tech community reacts to BNPL regulatory proposals

  Regulation is coming to the buy now, pay later market, but what does it mean for a retail tech community increasingly embracing these solutions?  Continue Reading

• Back on the office network: What are the risks for mobile users?

  Many people are returning to offices and bringing their mobile devices with them. What are the cyber security implications of this?  Continue Reading

• How companies are rethinking digital customer experience in wake of pandemic

  The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed much digital rhetoric as hollow, as companies are now rethinking the digital customer experience, leveraging instant messaging and other tools  Continue Reading

• Hybrid cloud: Five key questions in 2021

  We look at key need-to-knows about hybrid cloud in 2021, including how it is defined, key use cases, the main pitfalls and where it’s heading  Continue Reading

• Calling on communications to address humanitarian crises

  Télécoms Sans Frontières responds to the growing number of natural disasters with advanced communications and provides protection and assistance, as well as bridging the digital divide  Continue Reading

• APAC expert guide to storage management

  In this expert guide to storage management in Asia-Pacific, we unpack the developments shaping storage management and key strategies to extract business value from data  Continue Reading

• Developing an integrated customer and employee experience strategy

  We explore what customer experience and employee experience have in common – and the benefits of combining them  Continue Reading

• What lies beyond the data warehouse?

  Has the traditional data warehouse finally reached the end of its life? If so, what will follow it? Will it be a hybrid? We find out  Continue Reading

• French Caisse uses NetApp to move backups to object storage

  State financial arm wanted to move backups held on NAS file-based storage to object storage, so stuck with NetApp StorageGRID and achieved near-seamless migration  Continue Reading

• A post-pandemic recipe for developing customer experience

  Covid-19 has led to many people reassessing their priorities so customer experience needs to adapt to meet new expectations  Continue Reading

• Riskier business: How Brexit could be changing downtime risk and resilience in the datacentre

  As the UK enters the final quarter of its first year from the Brexit transition period, the risk picture for local datacentres remains unclear  Continue Reading

• Could Iceland be the best place in the world for high-performance computing?

  Most of Iceland’s cheap, sustainable energy is currently used by aluminium smelters, but recognising the need to diversify, the Landsvirkjun power company now promotes other uses  Continue Reading

• NVMe-over-fabrics: Five need-to-knows

  We look at five need-to-knows about NVMe-over-fabrics, such as its implementations – RDMA, Fibre Channel and TCP – use cases, hardware and operating system support  Continue Reading

• Ultimate questions require ultimate understanding in the quantum era

  In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Deep Thought calculates the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything as ‘42’. But what of quantum computing?  Continue Reading

• How Estonia’s country-as-a-service scheme has attracted tens of thousands of foreign entrepreneurs

  Estonia has created a country-as-a-service offering which is attracting entrepreneurs and businesses from across the world  Continue Reading

• Climate change and datacentres: Weighing up water use

  Given that a mid-sized datacentre uses as much water as three average-sized hospitals, green IT needs to start considering water usage  Continue Reading

• Is the tech sector facing an IT skills exodus?

  Three out of five of tech professionals say they are looking to move jobs over the next year. Why is this, and how big a skills problem is the tech industry facing?  Continue Reading

• HDD support and Zoned Namespaces: Key takeaways about NVMe 2.0

  We look at new capabilities in the most recent iteration of the NVMe flash storage standard  Continue Reading

• The second coming: The Nordic datacentre market comes of age

  As concerns mount about space and power constraints within several of Europe’s largest datacentre hubs, enterprises are being urged to consider shifting more of their energy-intensive workloads to the Nordic countries  Continue Reading

• Five things you need to know about cloud file services

  We look at cloud file services, which provide a file system-like architecture that gives users access to file data wherever they are, just as if it were a local NAS filer  Continue Reading

• Dell, NetApp and Pure: Healthy results on Covid easing

  Dell’s still top of the storage supplier pile with midrange arrays doing well, but meanwhile NetApp and Pure are making gains on the rise of public cloud  Continue Reading

• Bridging the gender gap in cyber security

  Some professional groups and companies in Asia are working hard to improve awareness of the cyber security profession and mentoring talented women in a bid to bridge the gender gap  Continue Reading

• How do SOAR and SIEM services fare in a rapidly changing cyber threat landscape?

  Given that cyber risks are rapidly growing in sophistication and number, we look at whether SIEM and SOAR security tools are still effective  Continue Reading

• Age discrimination: An overlooked diversity issue in tech

  When people talk about a lack of diversity in technology, age discrimination is not the first issue to come to mind, but it’s one that is prolific across the UK’s tech sector  Continue Reading

• Five key questions to ask about storage-as-a-service and consumption models

  We look at important questions to ask providers of consumption-based storage procurement services, such as base costs and burst, usage measurement and upgrade paths  Continue Reading

• Making the enterprise composable

  We speak to industry experts about how to develop composable IT that can quickly adapt to business change  Continue Reading

• Making a mark in cyber security

  Claudean Zheng’s knack for hacking landed her a career in cyber security, one that has been dotted by stints in both public and private sectors  Continue Reading

• Cloud disaster recovery: The devil is in the detail

  We look at cloud disaster recovery and the potential complexities that can result from partial outages and restores as well as challenges around re-configuring network and security  Continue Reading

• Boots leading drive for ‘professionalisation of IT’ in retail

  Boots becomes member of the BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, as CIO Rich Corbridge accelerates drive for the ‘professionalisation of IT’  Continue Reading

• AI more likely to complement than replace predictive analytics

  The discipline of predictive analytics is likely to increase in importance as it is complemented by artificial intelligence. NHS and National Express case studies prove the point  Continue Reading

• How women can succeed in cyber security

  A cyber security professional at Australia’s IAG shares her career journey and insights on how women can succeed in the field  Continue Reading

• Uninterruptible power in the datacentre: Choosing between sustainability and uptime

  With datacentres under heavier pressure to decarbonise, could even the lowly UPS play a larger role?  Continue Reading

• Considerations when deciding on a new SIEM or SOAR tool

  A successful deployment of any security tool very much depends on the maturity of security processes in the organisation  Continue Reading

• First priorities for the third workplace

  Almost 18 months since Covid-19 caused an almost overnight pivot to home working for many firms, hybrid working seems here to stay for knowledge workers. But the role of the 'third workspace' is not yet entirely clear  Continue Reading

• How mobile operators can cope with staycation boom and sport lockdowns lifting

  The periods of lockdown implemented in response to the Covid-19 pandemic led to new mobile network traffic patterns. How can operators adapt to shifting consumer behaviours and continue delivering high-quality experiences?  Continue Reading

• APAC buyer’s guide to robotic process automation

  In this buyer’s guide on RPA, we look at where the technology fits into the broader automation landscape, and other purchase and implementation considerations  Continue Reading

• When is SIEM the right choice over SOAR?

  Better instrumentation leads to better IT security but monitoring can quickly overload IT teams. Automation can help, but it may not always be needed  Continue Reading

• Modern ERP breaks the chains

  Modern ERP systems mean user organisations need no longer be stuck with hefty upgrades at times convenient to suppliers  Continue Reading

• Hybrid IT: Making datacentre and cloud work better together in the enterprise

  Enterprises are increasingly trying to balance and manage IT assets in a variety of environments, but there are plenty of tools and technologies out there to make the job a lot easier  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery for SMEs: Five key areas to consider

  We look at key disaster recovery considerations for SMEs, including why backup is not enough, how to create a disaster recovery plan, best-practice DR testing and DR as a service  Continue Reading

• Use ERP modernisation to drive efficiency and sustainability

  Evidence of global warming is everywhere, and as organisations update legacy ERP, there is a golden opportunity to build in sustainability KPIs  Continue Reading

• How digital operations drive ERP modernisation

  When it comes to modernising enterprise resource planning, IT decision-makers have a multitude of options. We look at what to consider when planning a modernisation project  Continue Reading

• DNA storage promises 10 million times storage capacity boost

  A datacentre that fits in the palm of your hand? However, right now, DNA storage is an expensive chemical process that researchers are trying to make a practical proposal  Continue Reading

• New thinking and systems required to tackle online fraud in retail

  Online fraud is a growing problem for retail, but are merchants doing enough to update systems and how should they change their actions to address it?  Continue Reading

• Five ways to ensure remote working security and compliance

  A mix of on-site and remote working has become a fact of life for many organisations. We look at five key things you should consider to ensure compliance and security  Continue Reading

• Storage-as-a-service: Consumption models from the big six

  We look at the big six storage makers’ consumption model offers, which allow customers to pay for on-prem hardware and cloud storage capacity on a pay-per-use basis, within limits  Continue Reading

• Windows 11: A first look at the first preview

  Microsoft recently unveiled its plans for the next version of the Windows operating system. We give it a test drive  Continue Reading

• Tips to minimise vulnerabilities in web and mobile apps

  Agile software development can sometimes be at odds with secure by design principles. We look at how organisations are balancing security with coding  Continue Reading

• Microservices: What enterprises need to know

  For any enterprises looking to build cloud-native applications, an understanding of microservices is essential  Continue Reading

• 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

• APAC datacentres gear up for the future

  Datacentre operators in the Asia-Pacific region are dabbling in advanced power and cooling solutions, along with machine learning and edge computing, to keep pace with growing demand for their services  Continue Reading

• Tech and new experiences tackling trouble at t’mall

  UK shopping centres are under pressure, but new concepts, tech-infused spaces, and fresh approaches to consumer engagement are revitalising the sector  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

• What steps can we take to finally close the tech skills gap?

  Despite ongoing efforts from government, education providers and industry to close the tech skills gap, not much has changed, so will new initiatives start to close the chasm?  Continue Reading

• Dublin in distress: Power supply issues threaten growth of Europe’s second-biggest datacentre hub

  Dublin’s standing as Europe’s second-biggest datacentre hub could be on potentially shaky ground as Ireland’s electricity infrastructure creaks under the pressure of so many power-hungry server farms plugging into the national grid  Continue Reading

• 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

• Five things you need to know about NVMe over Fabrics

  We look at NVMe-oF, which extends fast flash across the network – what it is, how it works, use cases, benefits and limitations, and the suppliers of NVMe-oF products  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

• Post-pandemic IT: Are virtual datacentre tours here to stay?

  A physical tour of a datacentre has traditionally been a key marketing and selling tool for colocation operators, and the Covid-19 pandemic has forced many to provide virtual alternatives. But how do they compare?  Continue Reading

• Nautilus Data Technologies CEO on building waterborne datacentres in the name of sustainability

  James Connaughton, CEO of waterborne datacentre design champion Nautilus Data Technologies, sets out why the firm is convinced that water-cooled facilities are the answer to the tech industry’s sustainability woes  Continue Reading

• Investigating process and performance improvement in private cloud

  Continuous process improvement means, among other things, creating an environment that helps enterprises gauge performance as requirements change. However, the whole picture should be considered before deciding on an approach  Continue Reading

• Best practices for secure printing

  The reality of a paperless office remains some way off, so printers are here to stay for a while. But their increasingly connected status means securing them should be a priority  Continue Reading

• Storage performance metrics: Five key areas to look at

  We look at the essentials in storage performance metrics: capacity, throughput and read/write capability, IOPS and latency, and hardware longevity measured by failure rates  Continue Reading

• Video commerce and livestreaming make waves in retail

  The growth in e-commerce during the pandemic is well documented, but the fragmented retail environment has also helped video commerce and livestreaming rise to prominence  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

• How the pandemic changed backup

  The Covid-19 pandemic forced big changes in how people work – we look at impacts on backup, including increased reliance on the cloud, plus security and compliance vulnerabilities and ransomware  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

• Private cloud deployments: Beating the blind spots and bottlenecks

  Private cloud can be challenging to manage while meeting the ramped-up demands of data-driven enterprises  Continue Reading

• The rise and rise of supply chain attacks

  Supply chain attacks in Asia-Pacific and elsewhere have intensified as cyber threat actors look to exploit the weakest links in business and digital supply chains  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

• What the Telecommunications (Security) Bill means for UK industry

  The Telecommunications (Security) Bill is intended to reinforce the security of the UK telecommunications infrastructure, but what are the implications for industry?  Continue Reading

• Buying a VPN? Here’s what you need to know

  VPNs are an effective cyber security tool for businesses and remote workers, but there are many things to consider before purchasing and implementing one. We explore some of these  Continue Reading

• Gartner: How to turn old datacentres into critical IT assets

  IT infrastructure and operations leaders are increasingly focusing on new ideas and technologies alongside ways to deliver business value  Continue Reading

• How computational storage delivers datacentre benefits

  Computational storage is an emerging field of IT that features compute processing power closely coupled with storage. We look at what it can be used for  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

• Living on the edge: The enterprises working with distributed cloud

  Distributed public cloud services are seen as driving future advances at the network edge but few companies are as yet enjoying full-fledged benefits  Continue Reading

• 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

• The National Security and Investment Act: What datacentre operators and investors need to know

  The incoming National Security and Investment Act will give the UK government enhanced powers to pre-screen and intervene on datacentre M&A deals, prompting concerns it could dampen the sector's soaraway growth rates  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 do I get my users to pay attention to security training?

  As cyber security risks grow daily, businesses must educate staff about these through cyber awareness training. But how can they ensure this is taken seriously by employees?  Continue Reading