8 best practices for going hybrid cloud Posted on August 25, 2016 by Tim Burke Public cloud apps and services are great for shifting your non-differentiated business functions and infrastructure from expensive on-premise environments to low-cost off-site facilities managed by specialists you have no hope of keeping on staff. Yet, if you’re facing shadow IT issues, demands to improve security and compliance, or the realization that you must prepare for a future in which success depends on your ability to differentiate your business, then you need something more than public cloud subscriptions. Continue reading →
Hybrid Cloud: Playing offense with technology innovation Posted on August 11, 2016 by Tim Burke As I’ve clarified in recent posts, cloud services generally provide the most resource-efficient way to satisfy your organization’s IT requirements — and usually are most effectively deployed via a hybrid cloud combining selected public cloud subscriptions with customized private cloud capabilities. The arguments for hybrid clouds that you hear most often are, basically, defensive, powering the customizations that legacy environments depend on, protecting sensitive data, and boosting compliance. Continue reading →
Introducing the automated private cloud in your hybrid future Posted on July 21, 2016 by Tim Burke Hybrid clouds are turning out to be the best way for enterprises to enable employees’ continued access to powerful on-demand public cloud resources without losing control over corporate data, corporate security, the ability to comply with legal requirements (e.g., ensuring employee and customer privacy), or the maintenance of legacy capabilities. Public cloud + private cloud = necessity After all, you’re not going to get line-of-business employees trying to do their jobs as effectively and efficiently as possible to cease their Shadow IT habits. They’ll invariably sign up for one of those quite excellent public cloud application services — whether you like it or not. Whether you even know it or not. And odds are you can’t afford to devote your IT people’s limited time to building in-house replacements for such services. This makes a hybrid cloud architecture a necessity for most enterprises, since a hybrid cloud combines use of Continue reading →
Why Shadow IT will drive you to a hybrid cloud Posted on July 7, 2016 by Tim Burke Given how much cloud apps can boost your business agility while reducing maintenance, labor, and capital costs, chances are you’re spending a sizeable chunk of your IT budget on them (probably more than you realize). You’re not alone. Industry watcher IDC predicts that in just a couple of years, at least half of all IT spending will be cloud-based, and by 2020, 60%-70% of all IT infrastructure, software, services, and technology spending will be cloud-based. Continue reading →
5 strategic moves to embrace your network’s future Posted on June 22, 2016 by Tim Burke By any measure, a smoothly operating data network is a business essential; the typical unplanned network outage, which lasts an average of 95 minutes, now costs upwards of $740,000 — and more than 80% of that cost is due to business disruption, forsaken revenue, and loss of end-user productivity. Yet every enterprise’s data network is different. So what does it take to get your unique network services requirements right? Continue reading →
Facing your network services future: 3 things you can do improve capabilities Posted on June 9, 2016 by Tim Burke If you’ve been stalling about data network upgrades while also planning to expand your use of cloud services, mobile capabilities (especially corporate wifi), voice-over-IP (now present in two thirds of enterprises, according to one study), and video streaming, you might want to rethink the order in which you proceed. That’s because these sorts of capabilities require network services that just weren’t needed before. Without the right networking capabilities, your cloud, wifi, and VoIP efforts may well stall. Continue reading →
Network services drive the managed tech environments you depend on Posted on May 26, 2016 by Tim Burke In my last post, I wrote about the crucial role network services play in underpinning cloud and managed services — and notably in enabling your technology services provider to wield a mix of customizable services they can tailor specifically to your business’s needs. Continue reading →
Leverage the power of data gravity with a network services assist Posted on May 12, 2016 by Tim Burke As you migrate more and more of your data to cloud environments, you’ve probably noticed a couple of things: 1 Data gravity It’s not your imagination: as you’ve embraced cloud computing, the data still outside your cloud(s) really does get pulled toward applications running in your cloud(s). Continue reading →
What to look for in a technology staffing services provider Posted on April 21, 2016 by Tim Burke Finding the technology skillsets you need when you need them is getting tougher all the time, as my last post attests. If you’re like many enterprises, you’re engaging more than one staffing service in hopes of ending staff deficits. So here’s my advice about what to look for in a technology staffing services provider: Continue reading →
Screening now: The great technology talent show Posted on April 7, 2016 by Tim Burke By some reports, hiring (and keeping) competent information technology talent has never been so difficult. To an extent, technology talent struggles vary in degree according to industry subsector and location. Cybersecurity, for instance, faces particularly intense shortages of much-needed experts. Some expect one million cybersecurity job openings this year, and even demand for entry-level cybersecurity slots, like information security analysts, is projected to climb by 37% over the next six years. Continue reading →
