Posted in Infrastructure on 27 October 2011
As the business world lies in fear of a double-dip recession, companies are advised to ‘think smart' and try to find a way to profit from further economic downturn and not to simply aim to survive it. Or, if they are struggling, to have a ‘rescue plan' in place that will spare them from drowning in debt or sinking altogether. As a consequence, mergers and acquisitions flourish remarkably in times of financial difficulties, and can be a way to gain during a tough spell - either by buying or joining with another business and expanding or by selling up before collapsing completely....
As with many other new technologies, financial organisations have been among the most keen to embrace desktop virtualisation. The main reason this particular technology is being largely adopted by the sector is because it suits the need for easier mobility: thanks to VDI, users can access their desktop from any PC with an internet connection, making it easy to access large amounts of data and heavy applications from a light mini netbook while travelling and even making it unnecessary to carry a laptop around when visiting another office.
But although for many this is a good enough reason a...
The latest version of VMware's VDI product, View 4.6, was released several weeks ago with a few new features, most notably PCoIP tunnelling - or more accurately View security servers that actually understand and accept the PCoIP protocol. This is a feature that was sorely lacking in the last revision and will help bolster the PCoIP vs ICA argument in favour of PCoIP, helping to ensure those environments that rely more heavily on their WAN infrastructure. It also guarantees a much better (although still not perfect) end user experience, especially for CAD users and those using graphic design...
As organisations look to embrace the cost-efficiency opportunities deriving from new technologies and services, there is a lot of talk about the benefits, risks and possible ROI of the blanket concept of ‘Cloud computing'. However, it is still unclear how using Cloud services will affect the existing network infrastructure and what impact it can have on IT support roles and the way end users deal with incidents.
The effect on an organisation's infrastructure depends on the Cloud model adopted, which may vary based on company size. For example, small organisations which are less worri...
Posted in Infrastructure on 23 December 2010
This is the end of a tough year for many organisations across all sectors. We found ourselves snowed-in last winter, were stuck abroad due to a volcano eruption in spring, suffered from the announcement of a tightened budget in summer, and had to start making drastic cost-saving plans following the Comprehensive Spending Review in autumn. Data security breaches and issues with unreliable service providers have also populated the press.
Somehow the majority of us have managed to survive all that; some better than others. As another winter approaches it is time to ask ourselves: what helped ...
Posted in Infrastructure on 19 October 2010
Recently-launched Metro Bank has made headlines these last few months for more than one reason: it is the first high-street bank to launch in over 100 years; it follows a retail store model, offering longer opening hours and no weekly closing day; and virtually all of their IT is outsourced to a Managed Services provider.
The news of a bank outsourcing its IT does not come as a complete surprise, as many banks outsource certain functions such as software development, IT Support etc. There are elements of novelty in this choice, though - for instance the fact everything but security and the...
Posted in Infrastructure on 04 October 2010
As virtualization technologies become increasingly popular, more and more businesses are thinking about using cloud computing for Disaster Recovery. Experts in the field believe that there are many advantages in embracing this solution - however, there are also some potential threats that need to be taken into account.
In order to consider cloud computing services, organisations need to evaluate the potential risks to their Information Assets and, in particular, how a 3rd party supplier will affect the Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability of their data.
Here are five tips on how to...
Posted in Infrastructure on 27 September 2010
As a legion of hybrid laptop/tablet devices are thrown into the market, riding the wave of the trendy but not-so-business-friendly iPad whilst trying to overcome its limitations in a bid to conquer a place in the corporate world, a few thoughts come to mind as a reflection on the future of business mobile computing.
Tablets in their pure and hybrid forms have been around for several years, but it is only recently that they have reached some sort of success thanks to the right marketing, targeting and perhaps timing. Perhaps they could only be accepted as the natural successor to smartphone...
A Plan-Net survey found that 87% of organisations are currently using Exchange 2003 or earlier. There has been a reluctance to adopt the 2007 version, often considered to be the ‘Vista' of the server platform - faulty and dispensable. But an upgrade to a modern, improved version is now becoming crucial: standard support for the 2003 version ended over a year ago and much technological progress has been made since then. It seems that unconvinced organisations need some good reasons to move from their well-known but obsolete system to the new and improved 2010 version, where business co...
"Free as a bird, is the next best thing to be," sang the Beatles. This is what modern workers want more and more: they want to be able to work while commuting, on a business trip and at home, even in the middle of the night or at weekends.
Naturally, the need for greater out-of-hours and out-of-office accessibility to work resources has grown with the development of new, smaller and lighter devices that are constantly coming out and gaining ground in the market.
With the choice getting wider by the day, professionals, who are getting more and more tech-savvy, want to be able to have their...
Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently announced the start of a new, post-PC era, declaring that Tablets such as the iPod might be replacing PCs just like 'old trucks were replaced by modern cars'. Microsoft's Steve Ballmer reacted by saying that PCs are undergoing many transformations and tablets are just one of the experimental forms we will see, adding that the PC market has still a lot to grow.
As an experiment Keith Smith, Senior Consultant and Adrian Polley, Technical Services Director take the sides of Jobs and Ballmer to discuss the two different viewpoints.
Are Tablets the future?
It's...
Choosing more than one supplier is necessary until a time when cloud computing comes of age.
Virtualising servers, purchasing space in data centres and utilising applications hosted and managed by third parties can have some undeniable advantages: they can increase efficiency, decrease IT-related costs, allow greater mobility and also represent a greener alternative for organisations. But as the popularity of cloud computing grows, so do concerns regarding the unclear implications of the new technologies. If the initial worries were mostly about security of data stored at a provider, now a...
Data collected through a survey carried out by IT Services provider Plan-Net has shown that 42% of UK businesses are planning to roll out Windows 7 in the next 18 months. However the survey, of 100 IT decision makers in City-based businesses of over 250 users, discovered that 24% are waiting until 2011 to roll out the new OS while only 18% are either in the process or plan to start the transition in 2010. With only 6% of the surveyed organisations already using Windows 7 and a further 8% not making the leap for 2 to 3 years, a stunning 24% are not thinking about rolling out Windows 7 at all...
Life in Venice doesn't stop every time it floods. People roll up their trousers, pull on their wellies and still walk to the grocer's, go to work, grab a vino with friends. And when it's all over they mop the floor, dry the furniture, and go back to their pre-flood life. How do they do it? They choose not to have carpet or wooden flooring, keep updated on water level and have a spare pair of boots right next to the door. This is called prevention.
When it comes to faults in IT systems, both common and rare just like flooding can be, prevention is not better than cure - it is the cure, the ...
Posted in Infrastructure on 17 February 2010
After 3 years in beta, Microsoft is expected to launch System Center Service Manager (SCSM) sometime this year. Long-time Microsoft watchers will know that the company often "drip feeds" new markets with product information before products are ready as a way of generating interest. This has the added benefit, from Microsoft's perspective, of creating uncertainty and potentially delaying buying decisions for competing products. But a 3-year beta is unusual even for Microsoft, and is largely explained by the company deciding that the product needed a ground-up rewrite after feedba...
Posted in Infrastructure on 11 February 2010
The latest Gartner predictions state that by 2012, 20% of businesses will own no IT assets. Is IT following the paths of cars and mobile phones and will we end up leasing it?
It is actually not difficult to imagine. The growth of utility computing means organisations are already purchasing software and storage on demand, leaving its management to a third party. They don't only do it because it is convenient economically speaking, but for a more important reason - it spares them from the responsibility of managing something that is not the main function of their business. As the trend grows...
Posted in Infrastructure on 11 January 2010
Virtualisation seems to be the hot word of the year for all businesses large and small, and as everyone seems to concentrate on deciding whether VMware is better than Microsoft HyperV, often driven by the media, they might overlook one of the major pitfalls in moving to virtual - the lack of forward planning.
Many organisations invest only a small amount of money and time investigating solutions, but choosing one which is tailored to the business rather than investing in the coolest, latest or cheapest product on the market can save organisations from the illusion of cost-effectiveness.
T...
Posted in Infrastructure on 17 December 2009
Those of us old enough still remember the advertising slogan suggesting that 'no one ever got fired for buying IBM'. And it was largely true. Many IT managers spent a lot of money on IBM systems as it appeared a risk free option - even if they were not always convinced it was the best solution for the business.
The sentiment is not confined to IBM of course. More recently you could easily replace IBM with names such as Microsoft, Cisco or Dell, for example. The problem is that it is there are usually too many options available. And the same is true when it comes to virtualisati...
Posted in Infrastructure on 15 December 2009
Many of you who have visited an exhibition featuring modern art will know what I'm talking about: you stare at a tiny, coloured dot in the middle of a huge white canvas, and think 'This is art? Says who?' Who decides which pieces of modern art fetch millions at auction and which are consigned to the scrapheap?
The answer can be found with no single person. It is, in reality, a combination of influences. Hype generated by perceived experts, the media, even the public at large play a part as a 'crowd sourcing' entity the makers of Twitter could only dream about. Of course, this situation isn...
Posted in Infrastructure on 03 December 2009
2012. If you take the legend behind this year's Hollywood blockbuster of that name to hold some truth, we're in for a bumpy ride in a couple of years. Ok, so the major cities of the world are unlikely to disappear into gaping chasms but the Mayan prophecy used as inspiration for the movie which predicts the occurrence of an unspecified major change in 2012 might not be so unbelievable when it comes to IT.
Of course, that isn't to suggest anything of the apocalyptical nature seen in the big-screen blockbuster is likely to occur, but from an IT point of view at least, 2012, and the period le...
There seems to be an article on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) in every industry publication I read at the moment however I have yet to read anything that addresses one of the biggest issues on the table - namely, what it means to those tasked with supporting the desktop environment on a day-to-day level.
The Service Desk will change, that's a given, and with it, the people who work in IT Support must change too. A properly implemented VDI environment means a drastic reduction in desk side visits which will surely have an effect on 2nd line Support in its current form. Though it migh...
Posted in Infrastructure on 18 February 2009
It has been difficult to pick up an IT magazine recently and not find any number of stories on virtualisation. Whilst ‘virtualisation' seems a rather nebulous term that's easily adopted by vendors trying to spruce up their existing product line, its also true that it is starting to play a major role in infrastructure strategies - a trend that will only continue.
Anyone who has some interest in the virtualisation story will be familiar with VMWare; a company that has done more than anyone to push the topic up the corporate agenda. After an IPO last year, the company currently has a ma...
