IT efficiency and sustainability

How to combat VM sprawl

VMs are easy to create, but when unmanaged they proliferate around your infrastructure. Here, we explain VM sprawl and how to combat it Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

M&S turns to predictive analytics to keep shelves stocked over Christmas

Marks & Spencer is using predictive analytics to keep shelves stocked with mince pies and turkeys over Christmas. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

Computer Weekly's UKtech50 event 2014

Computer Weekly hosted its annual UKtech50 countdown event on 3rd December 2014. This year Jane Moran, CIO of Unilever took away the award for the most influential person in UK IT. Here are some photos from the day Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Baldwin, Freelance editor and journalist

Ministry of Defence consolidates with green datacentre

The MoD is aiming to reduce its IT carbon footprint with the construction of a new datacentre to replace the existing host site in Bath Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

CIO interview: Jon Rudoe, digital and technology director, Sainsbury’s

While supermarkets all over the UK are facing challenging times ahead of them, Sainsbury's is taking its technology and innovation into its own hands by developing digital products for its customers. Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Baldwin, Freelance editor and journalist

Pressure on Universal Credit’s digital service mounts as testing begins

Risks remain for Universal Credit as DWP continues its twin-track gradual roll-out of live and digital services Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Baldwin, Freelance editor and journalist

Regulators fine Royal Bank of Scotland ₤56m for IT failure

Financial industry regulators fine Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for an IT outage in 2012 that left customers unable to access their accounts Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Asda opens technology centre in Leeds

Asda opens a technology centre in its Leeds head office to provide a more streamlined service for online customers Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Baldwin, Freelance editor and journalist

Google joins enterprise cloud battle with additions to its cloud platform

Google made a raft of announcements at its GCP Live event, including enhancements to its networking stack and storage price drops Continue Reading

By

• Janakiram MSV

BBC takes iPlayer video production to AWS cloud to beat bottleneck and storage woes

Having run Video Factory on AWS for over a year, BBC's Robert Shield explains how he overcame iPlayer bottleneck and availability challenges Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

European enterprises can halve colo expenses by moving north, says Gartner

Favourable environmental conditions in Northern Europe mean enterprises can save on their datacentre expenses Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Why Shell, BP and PwC teamed up to launch platform-neutral IT4IT Forum

Lack of IT integration and workload interoperability is pushing enterprises such as Royal Dutch Shell to collaborate with IT providers to develop standards Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

IBM operating income falls by 18% as it offloads semiconductor unit

IBM reported lower-than-expected earnings for the third quarter of 2014, with revenue down by 4% year-on-year Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Cloud, frozen pizza model and the immutable infrastructure

The architecture pattern for immutable infrastructure is based on the made-to-order pizza model Continue Reading

By

• Janakiram MSV

CIOs fear poor cloud investment is making businesses uncompetitive

CIOs and CFOs fear their enterprises are missing revenue opportunities due to poor cloud strategies Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

ARM enters mainstream datacentre with HP’s ProLiant Moonshot servers

ARM chips have entered mainstream enterprise datacentre with HP's production-ready ARM-powered Moonshot servers Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Accommodation booking site picks Dell cloud to fix downtime issues

Eviivo, a UK-based online accommodation booking website, has placed its business-critical systems on a Dell cloud platform Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Demystifying Kubernetes: the tool to manage Google-scale workloads in the cloud

We are witnessing a new technology wave in the form of immutable infrastructure and micro-services Continue Reading

By

• Janakiram MSV

Define a software delivery strategy for business innovation – four key steps

As software takes a central role in modern business models, application delivery capability has become the key enabler of disruption Continue Reading

By

• Diego Lo Giudice and Kurt Bittner

The internet of things is coming: Is your datacentre ready?

Gartner estimates the IoT will see 26 billion units installed by 2020 – channelling huge volumes of data traffic into datacentres Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

Government major projects watchdog needs more powers, says MPs

Major Projects Authority needs stronger powers to improve project delivery across government, say MPs Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Baldwin, Freelance editor and journalist

Why John Linwood is not to blame for BBC’s failed technology project

Former BBC CTO has won his case for unfair dismissal over the failed £100m DMI project, but what lessons can be learned? Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Baldwin, Freelance editor and journalist

AstraZeneca rolls out IT self service using ServiceNow

Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has rolled out ServiceNow self service IT to 51,500 staff globally in four months Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

Lack of coding skills may lead to skills shortage in Europe

European Commission urges people to learn coding, warning that a lack of coding skills could see Europe facing skills shortage by 2020 Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

TfL wastes millions on telecoms, says IIPAG watchdog

Watchdog IIPAG criticises Transport for London (TfL) for its inefficient and fragmented telecoms contracts Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

The CIO Playbook – Innovation

Nicholas R. Colisto describes a comprehensive practical method to tap into your company's reservoir of innovation to solve real business problems in this extract from his book. Continue Reading

Managing the digital innovation process

Rob Lambert, visiting fellow at Cranfield School of Management, offers advice to CIOs who want to drive digital innovation in this presentation. Continue Reading

Realise Benefits from a Digital Strategy

Rob Lambert, visiting fellow at Cranfield School of Management, offers advice to CIOs on developing business cases and maximising the business value of digital technology projects. Continue Reading

Accelerating Digital Marketing

This study from CEB debunks the myths over the relationship between CIOs and CMOs and shows how CIOs can play a critical role in accelerating digital marketing. Continue Reading

Roadchef exits IBM Global Services for direct supplier relationships

Motorway services firm Roadchef ended an outsourcing deal with IBM Global Services when its IT was up for refresh and moved to SAP Continue Reading

CW Europe - July 2014 Edition

In this issue of CW Europe we investigate how changing your storage can make the world of difference to your company’s carbon emissions. Continue Reading

Half of network equipment ageing or obsolete, survey finds

Dimension Data finds 51% of network devices near the end of their life as buyers take cautious approach to hardware refreshes Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Improve the success of HR systems implementation

Mark Martin, former HR executive at Direct Line Group and T-Mobile, lists the key questions you need to ask suppliers when selecting a HR Technology system. Continue Reading

Will silicon photonics replace copper cabling in mainstream datacentres?

Silicon photonics can increase bandwidth in servers, improve data transfer speeds and reduce complexity. But are datacentres ready for it? Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

High availability strategy key to saving costs, says Sungard AS

The cost of IT downtime is extremely high for businesses – but must all systems and applications be highly available all the time? Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

BSkyB retunes IT to ready-for-anything datacentre quad

British broadcaster BSkyB has based its IT on four core datacentres that are resilient, interconnected, energy-efficient and cloud-ready Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Straight to the Top. CIO Leadership in a Mobile, Social, and Cloud-based World

There is a growing trend to emphasise the business skills of CIOs, but in-depth knowledge of technology is still necessary for CIOs to succeeed, writes Gregory S. Smith, in this extract from his book, Straight to the top. Continue Reading

Managing IT projects for business change. Dealing with trouble.

Jeff Morgan and Chris Dale offer advice on managing unanticipated events that can disrupt IT projects in this extract from their book, Managing IT Projects for Business Change. Continue Reading

Transforming business at the intersection of marketing and technology

Businesses have to change themselves quickly and dramatically if they want to survive and thrive, say Bob Lord and Ray Velez, CEO and CTO of razorfish, in this extract from their book, Covnerge. Continue Reading

Greenpeace singles out datacentre firms for lack of energy efficiency

Greenpeace's new report on datacentre energy efficiency lauds efforts of some tech giants while singles out others for their lack of commitment to green energy Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Understanding the real value of IT and proving it to the business

At a time when costs are being continually squeezed, there is more pressure than ever to demonstrate the business value of technology Continue Reading

By

• Lisa Kelly

Presentation: Virgin Media’s unified communications strategy

Colin Miles, director of IT Technical Services of Virgin Media explains how unified communications has transformed the company, in this presentation for Computer Weekly's 500 Club for IT leaders. Continue Reading

Opinion: The Strategic Execution Framework

Innovation. Agility. Performance. Scalability. Are these among the key initiatives for your company this year? Continue Reading

By

• Tim Wasserman

Executing Your Strategy 6: Transition

This is the final part of a six part guide which explains the key steps of the Strategic Execution Framework, developed by the Stanford Advanced Management Programme. Continue Reading

Insurance Industry IT: What’s costing you dearly?

Its time to replace badly automated insurance business processes with more flexible systems, say analysts Rob Bamforth and Clive Longbottom. Continue Reading

Thames Water pilots smart analytics with Accenture

Thames Water is six months into an 18 month pilot with Accenture Smart Grid to pilot real time monitoring to deliver an improved service Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

No more email? Why companies are turning to collaboration technology

Collaboration technologies are helping companies improve their employees' work-life balance Continue Reading

By

• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

Interview: Prepare for the end of the silicon era

IT breakthroughs are governed by the insights of Intel's Gordon Moore in 1965. IBM fellow Bernie Meyerson believes Moore’s law no longer holds true Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

HR Technology Key Trends 2014

HR Directors and leading IT suppliers give their take on the HR technology trends for 2014 in this analysis from HR Zone. Continue Reading

BBC DMI row continues as Linwood defends “working technology”

Former BBC CTO John Linwood was scrutinised by a public accounts committee yesterday during a hearing about the failed BBC Digital Media Initiative Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Baldwin, Freelance editor and journalist

Governance of IT, an executive guide to ISO/IEC 38500

This extract from the book: Governance of IT, an executive guide to ISO/IEC 38500, tells you the key things you need to consider before you start a project implementation. Continue Reading

How web giants are making datacentres lean and green

Facebook and eBay infrastructure chiefs outline their efficiency strategies at DatacenterDynamics Converged conference in London Continue Reading

By

• Jim Mortleman

Call for graduates to apply for John Lewis technology scheme

Retailer John Lewis is encouraging university-leavers to apply for positions in its graduate development scheme Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Baldwin, Freelance editor and journalist

Executing Your Strategy 1: Ideation

Ideation is based on the concept that life asks three fundamental questions Continue Reading

Personal skills for professional success: influencing

Mastering influencing skills opens doors for your career by improving not just the ways in which you interact with important groups of people, but also by increasing your self-confidence in your ability to communicate persuasively. Continue Reading

A CW buyer’s guide to Human Capital Management

Computer Weekly looks at what steps the industry has taken to improve talent management; bridging the gap between the cost savings promised by cloud technologies and the value they deliver; and how to recruit expertise in emerging technologies. Continue Reading

Executing your strategy 2: Nature

This is the second of six part guide which explains the key steps of the Strategic Execution Framework, developed by the Stanford Advanced Management Programme, to help organisations stay focused on innovation, increase performance, manage change and scale the business. Continue Reading

Digital identities and the open business

Analysts Bob Tarzey and Rob Bamforth explain the business drivers that encouraging companies to invest in Identity and access management (IAM) despite tight budgets. Continue Reading

How to build an effective User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Team

Learn how to build an effective User Acceptance Testing (UAT) team with this extract from User Acceptance Testing, a step by step guide. Continue Reading

The Deloitte CIO Survey 2013

This study from Deloitte gives the latest trends in IT spending, technology and business priorities and CIOs' career aspirations Continue Reading

Interview: Professor Ian Bitterlin, the Green Grid

Green Grid's Chair Ian Bitterlin discusses datacentre energy efficiency, role of DCIM tools and whether UK and EU CIOs are doing enough for datacentre efficiency Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

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

By

• Clive Longbottom

Case study: Coca-Cola embarks on green IT strategy

Coca-Cola is aiming to reduce the carbon footprint of its IT. Kevin Sirjuesingh, director of IT strategic initiatives, discusses the plan Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

Oracle OpenWorld 2013: Tesco takes a multi-channel approach to customer experience

Tesco has been using an array of Oracle technology, including its customer experience (CX) portfolio to turn the company in a multi-channel retailer Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Baldwin, Freelance editor and journalist

Oracle OpenWorld 2013: Businesses need to have constant digital conversations with the CIO, says PwC

Companies which have strong digital conversations across their business are more likely to be successful in sales, innovation and growth Continue Reading

BMW gears up IT resilience with private cloud infrastructure

After testing and validating its own private cloud services, BMW's IT team is ready to use it in production Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

£480bn of government revenue depends on "risky" legacy IT

Almost £480bn of the UK government’s revenues are dependent on legacy IT systems that “could present a very significant risk” Continue Reading

By

• Bryan Glick, Editor in chief

A CW buyer's guide to software asset management

Computer Weekly looks at best practice for software asset management in this 10-page buyer's guide. Continue Reading

Bet365 improves latency and peering by updating network infrastructure

Online gambling site Bet365 upgraded its network and improved its latency to deliver a fast, smooth and reliable experience to its customers Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

CW buyer’s guide: managing identity & access

This 10-page guide to identity and access management examines how to find a balance between the needs of the business and regulators Continue Reading

Winning the Paper Wars

This report from AIIM, a global community of IT professionals, assess the ROI of paper free projects, the drivers for eliminating paper, and the hurdles. Continue Reading

Enterprises spend more on third-party datacentres than in-house ones: Uptime survey

Uptime Institute’s annual datacentre industry survey reveals shift in IT spend away from enterprise-owned datacentres to outsourced options Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Datacentres are a key focus for government’s Green ICT Delivery Unit

With the growing use of online services for government transactions, datacentres are a key focus of the government’s green IT strategy Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

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

By

• Clive Longbottom

Google datacentres awarded ISO 50001 certification

Google has obtained ISO 50001 certification for its energy management systems in six datacentre facilities across the US Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

European banking firm UniCredit to introduce cloud in its datacentres

European banking firm UniCredit has signed a multi-billion dollar deal with IBM to bring cloud into its datacentres Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Hidden cost of cloud computing is CIOs’ biggest concern

A study into attitudes and concerns relating to cloud computing has revealed that 80% of CIOs are concerned about its hidden costs Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Using ICT financing for strategic gain

Analysts Clive Longbottom and Rob Bamford offer advice to smaller businesses on financing and leasing of ICT hardware and software Continue Reading

Nucleus Research ROI Vendor Comparison Scorecard

This tool provides a single page scorecard for comparing vendors across 14 weighted factors. It generates an overall score for each vendor along with a risk assessment based on the weighting of the factors. Continue Reading

Best practices in software asset management for a flexible, resilient IT

Managing software assets is vital in order to maintain a highly flexible and up-to-date IT platform and more importantly remain compliant Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

How BP made its IT future-ready with a hybrid cloud infrastructure

BP bridged its cloud gap with a cautious and calculated approach using a mix of private cloud, public cloud and in-house IT infrastructure Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Frimley Park NHS deploys VDI for efficiency and BYOD

When the NHS trust came under pressure to make its IT budget go further, it opted to deploy VDI in its A&E department Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Lloyds customer complaints plummet after automating manual processes

Lloyds is claiming dramatic improvements in the quality of its customer service after automating manual banking processes Continue Reading

By

• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

The Future of Corporate IT

This research study from CEB identifies five opportunities for CIOs to drive productivity and growth as organisations adopt new working practices. Continue Reading

Sweating your datacentre’s IT assets - is it a good idea?

Amid economic uncertainties, businesses want to get more from existing IT assets. But does it make sense from an IT point of view? Continue Reading

By

• Clive Longbottom

ARI uses HANA to power self-service BI for fleet management

ARI, the leasing and fleet management business, has used SAP HANA to boost business intelligence (BI) and predictive analytics Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

Domino’s Pizza plans to move web services to the cloud

After using cloud for testing and development apps, Domino’s Pizza is now looking to move its web services to the cloud Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Mobile Expense Management

Analysts Rob Bamforth and Clive Longbottom advises businesses on ways to manage the cost of mobile communications. Continue Reading

Collaborative Learning in a Project Environment

This guide from ESI International explains how organisations can harness collaborative learning to drive better project management. Continue Reading

Home Office needs to boost capability to fix UKBA IT

The Home Office must improve its internal capability to fix the siloed IT systems behind the soon-to-be-scrapped UK Border Agency Continue Reading

By

• Kathleen Hall, TechTarget

Universal Credit not at odds with agile, says former chief

Former programme director of Universal Credit, Malcolm Whitehouse, has denied the mega-project is at odds with agile development Continue Reading

By

• Kathleen Hall, TechTarget

IT Priorities Europe 2013

Compare IT technology and spending priorities across Europe with Computer Weekly/TechTarget's IT Priorities 2013 European research. Continue Reading

Benefits Management: How to increase the business value of your IT projects

This book extract explains how organisation can uses benefits management techniques to increase the value of IT projects to the business. Continue Reading

Maximising automation and the industrialisation of IT

This report from analysts Bob Tarzey and Clive Longbottom makes the case for automation in IT operations management. Continue Reading

Top 10 Business Analysis Trends for 2013

A global panel of experts identifies the Top 10 Business Analysis trends in 2013 Continue Reading

Interview: Phil Smith, CEO of Cisco UK & Ireland

Cisco's UK CEO talks about innovation, wireless vs wired and software defined networking at the company’s annual Cisco Live event in London Continue Reading

By

• Jennifer Scott, TechTarget

The Deloitte CFO Survey

Businesses are entering 2013 in a more optimistic mood than they entered 2012, but continue to favour defensive strategies in a low growth environment, this report from Deloitte reveals. Continue Reading

IT Services Purchase Intentions 2013

This survey of over 130 European IT professionals from Computer Weekly and TechTarget examines company's buying plans for IT services in 2013. Continue Reading

CW Buyer's Guide: Asset Management

Computer Weekly looks at how IT asset lifecycle management can help CIOs manage their organisation's technology assets. Continue Reading

Business Continuity: Availability, recovery and archive

Analysts Clive Longbottom and Bob Tarzey offer a 7 step approach to creating a business continuity and disaster recovery strategy. Continue Reading