Lifeline Data Centers » CIO Strategy

InformationWeek – The New IT Rulebook: Not For The Faint Of Heart

Doug Theis — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:55:21 +0000

Smaller, lighter, and more agile are more than just industry buzzwords. IT organizations that fail to lead those charges will get relegated to cost centers.

In an industry where innovation threatens to tear down legacy systems and practices (and vendors) just as it generates new opportunities, IT organizations are nonetheless resistant to change. It’s natural to fear the unknown, question the unproven, be skeptical of the latest and greatest.

Even pros who pride themselves on keeping up with the hottest technologies are prone to pooh-poohing the latest trends. Note the continued enterprise IT resistance to the cloud, consumer, and social movements–”non-compliant,” “insecure,” “overrated,” “frivolous,” “nothing really new here” … pick your reason(s) for not buying in.

Most CIOs understand that the old IT rulebook needs revisions, mostly because colleagues in marketing, HR, and other departments are making noises about working around their organizations (or are already doing so). But many IT teams continue to hang on to existing practices: developing expensive native apps when the Web variety will do; securing perimeters and devices rather than the most sensitive data; abiding the use of software as a service and other public cloud offerings for only non-strategic apps and infrastructure; shutting out the personal devices employees find most productive for work.

More of the InformationWeek article from Rob Preston

TechRepublic: 11 cloud IaaS providers compared

Doug Theis — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:15:40 +0000

Takeaway: Thoran Rodrigues does a thorough comparison of 11 IaaS cloud providers based on the same group of criteria. See how the major players fared in his scoring comparison.

Cloud computing is a term that encompasses a lot of different things. From servers and infrastructure to office software, a lot of IT is now sold on a cloud-based, service model. This means that any comparison of cloud providers can not only be very complex, but can also end up measuring companies that don’t even compete with each other. To avoid this situation, different types of cloud services should be looked at separately. Today, we are going to focus on infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).

IaaS providers are companies that provide the most basic IT needs – servers, networking, and storage – on a usage-based payment model. They typically make heavy investments in data centers and other infrastructure, and then rent it out, allowing consumers to avoid investments of their own. Even these providers, however, are not all pursuing the same business model. While the largest and most well-known are focused on the general public, with fully on-line automated set-ups, there are also some niche players that cater only to the enterprise market, as well as smaller companies that resell infrastructure from larger ones, usually with some added services.

Comparing companies

For the sake of this comparison, we are going to focus on IaaS providers whose services can be purchased directly on-line, without requiring contact with salespeople of any kind. They were selected based both on my knowledge of companies in this space and based on the availability of information about them on the web. I ended up with 11 companies, ranging from the large and well known to smaller, newer ones.

More of the TechRepublic article from Thoran Rodrigues

CIO.com – A CFO’s Take on This BYOD Thing

Doug Theis — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:52:18 +0000

In a nutshell: The ever-increasing popularity of mobile devices has changed the way many enterprise users deploy technology, with an ever-increasing body of employees now bringing their own devices into work with them. The enterprise, meanwhile, focuses on ensuring its data is available securely to these devices. So, how prevalent is this trend really?

I’ll skip the potential cost savings; relative to the extent of your enterprise, a move to mobile devices in replacement of PCs will indeed save a little cash, but this will quickly be eaten up by the IT departments need to make data available and secure.

A global Forrester Consulting study, announced in September last year, confirmed BYOD is part of today’s discussions, noting that of 546 organizations looked at, two-thirds had seen end-user interest in BYOD policies (PDF).

Also interesting: 20-22% of businesses already support employee-owned laptops, tablets and smartphones. An additional 16-21% of enterprises intend enabling such support across the next two years. In this they’re driven by an interest in helping employees become more autonomous in providing their own tech support. Some are chasing that holy grail of cost-saving, but I’m not convinced they’ve fully thought through the process.

Take desktop virtualization; 21% of the survey group are prioritizing desktop and application virtualization above any moves to upgrade their Windows installs. The impact here should be to make an enterprise completely platform- and device-neutral. This should be a good thing. Another 29% of firms are standardizing around Windows 7 and desktop virtualization.

More of the CIO.com article from Jonny Evans

CIO Insight – IT Management Slideshow: Inspiration and Advice From Leading CIOs

Doug Theis — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:26:00 +0000

Where can you go to find out what’s on the mind of some of the top CIOs in the world? Try the pages of the book “CIOs At Work” (Apress/Available now). Author Ed Yourdon gained access to leading IT executives in fields such as energy, government, technology and education and offers probing, insightful interviews. He speaks with the CIOs of 16 major organizations including Google, Microsoft, Verizon and the New York Stock Exchange. The book focuses on the shifting role of CIOs, from that of nuts-and-bolts IT managers to strategic players helping craft an organization’s business and growth strategies.

More of the CIO Insight article from Dennis McCafferty

TechNewsWorld: How to Choose a Data Center

Doug Theis — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:51:50 +0000

After a bad experience, I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t get fooled again. I put on my Due Diligence Hat and sat down to determine how to choose a data center. Following are the major points which you absolutely cannot ignore if you hope to be successful. I wish I had this article when I was going about my business. Here, I hope to provide, in no particular order, a definitive list of investigation points.

In 2005, notebook computers accounted for 50.1 percent of all computer sales. In 2006, shelf space for notebooks increased 44 percent while desktop shelf space (and sales) went down by 23 percent. What does this have to do with a data center? Everything.

At Journyx, where I manage IT, we presently have about 25 employees. Of those, 11 have laptops issued to them as their primary machine. One employee works remotely in another state. Therefore, half of our employees need constant remote access to our business. Well, it’s possible they don’t need it, but they sure do whine about it an awful lot when they don’t have it. So for me, in my little fiefdom known as “IT,” that pretty much amounts to the same thing.

As with most companies, we store the bulk of our data internally on our network here at the corporate headquarters, but we also store a fair bit of it at our data center. We have Software as a Service (SaaS) applications which we host for our customers as well as for ourselves. We have our Web site, of course, which must be up and running 24/7 or my CEO calls me up in a panic. We have an FTP (file transfer protocol) server for support, as well as one for the public, etc. You get the picture. We’ve got resources that are needed by our remote employees as well as our customers. In essence, we need a reliable, 24/7, redundant, fast way for our people and the world to access our data. If this sounds familiar to you, you might be in the same boat that we were in. We needed a data center.

More of the TechNewsWorld article from Scott Whitney

Arthur Cole – That Data Center Is A-Changin’

Doug Theis — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 13:05:05 +0000

‘Tis the season for year-ahead predictions, and the top three IT market analysis firms don’t disappoint. To sum up: Things are changing faster than most people realize, and the fallout from cloud computing, virtualization, social networking and mobility will significantly change the enterprise landscape in relatively short order.

First up is IDC, which recently issued a report stating that entrenched interests are starting to show the strain of shifting to the new paradigm, making it highly likely that more than a few of today’s giants could go the way of Wang, DEC and other stalwarts of the mainframe era. According to the Chief Analyst Frank Gens, spending on new technologies will reach about 20 percent of the total IT spend, a dramatic shift of the recent past when the vast majority of budgets were devoted to maintaining existing platforms. Already, spending on new technologies is growing six times faster than that of traditional servers and PCs.

More of the IT Business Edge post from Arthur Cole

Computerworld – A high-tech pioneer reflects on the digital revolution

Doug Theis — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:56:25 +0000

The man who led the design and development of the first microprocessor 40 years ago said that, at the time, he didn’t foresee the extent of the digital revolution he was helping to create.

“I’ve been surprised to see the impact the microprocessor has had on society, particularly on work,” said its designer, Frederico Faggin.

Today, Frederico Faggin envisions a future where quantum and cognitive computing are widely used, but he said there’s no way to foresee the amazing changes to the way we work and live that technological evolution will bring in another 40 years.

More of the Computerworld article from Sharon Gaudin

NetworkWorld – ‘Server huggers’ present obstacle to cloud adoption

Doug Theis — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:09:44 +0000

Chipita America CIO defend food makers use of cloud-based apps, and criticizes many IT managers’ reasons for eschewing it.

Chipita America may be as close to a server-less company as one can find. Its ERP systems, EDI, BI, Office, Exchange and file servers are all hosted in a service provider’s cloud.

About six years ago, when many IT managers were debating Nicholas Carr’s book ” Does IT Matter ,” Chipita CIO Scott Martin was moving the Tulsa, Okla.-based snack food maker’s email to a third party’s cloud hosted platform. Since then Chipita has moved the rest its core systems to the cloud.

Martin said he didn’t see a competitive advantage in managing internal systems, believing that his time could be best spent focusing on business needs.

“The real difference that IT leaders [can make] is being able to leverage information to create competitive advantage in the marketplace,” said Martin.

Six years later, Martin is still a pioneer in cloud adoption, and at times is called on to defend and explain the approach to his peers.

More of the NetworkWorld article from Patrick Thibodeau

SearchCIO: CIO’s change management strategy gives left and right brain their due

Doug Theis — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:15:21 +0000

CIO Michael Saitow can’t divulge the details of his biggest challenge in 2012. Suffice it to say, he’s embarking on a major project at M.S. Walker Inc., a Somerville, Mass.-based wine and liquor distribution business. What he can say with certainty is that the toughest part of the project will be finding the right change management strategy.

“I spend half my time working on projects, and half my time trying to figure out how you get people to buy in on these projects,” Saitow said.

M.S. Walker will produce more than 1 million cases of spirits in 2012. The 80-year-old company does business in more than 30 states and has offices throughout the Northeast. So, what is the challenge for Saitow on IT projects big and small? “How do you make sure that you have done enough research to know what your end community’s requirements, expectations and wants are? So that when you are ready to make the change, it is as easy and painless for them as possible — and even exciting,” he said.

More of the SearchCIO article from Linda Tucci

ZDNet – Line-of-business tech budgets may soon top IT department budgets: Gartner

Doug Theis — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:36:13 +0000

Gartner has just issued it’s latest set of information technology predictions for 2012 and beyond. Along with the more predictable forecasts that everything is going to cloud and mobile, with a lot of Big Data to go along with it, is this interesting nugget: IT departments may soon have smaller technology budgets than the business units they’re supposed to be serving.

Gartner analysts are predicting that by the year 2015, 35% of enterprise IT expenditures for most organizations will be managed outside the IT department’s budget. “Next generation digital enterprises are being driven by a new wave of business managers and individual employees who no longer need technology to be contextualized for them by an IT department,” the report states. “These people are demanding control over the IT expenditure required to evolve the organization within the confines of their roles and responsibilities. CIOs will see some of their current budget simply reallocated to other areas of the business. In other cases, IT projects will be redefined as business projects with line-of-business managers in control.”

Can it be, that non-IT types may have bigger technology budgets that IT departments? “We know that has been shifting subtlety over the years,” says Daryl Plummer, managing VP and Gartner fellow in an audio interview posted at the Gartner prediction page. “Now, it is something has become a major issue as CMOs, or chief marketing officers, may end up having larger IT budgets than CIOs.”

More of the ZDNet article from Joe McKendrick

Lifeline Data Centers » CIO Strategy

InformationWeek – The New IT Rulebook: Not For The Faint Of Heart

More Posts

TechRepublic: 11 cloud IaaS providers compared

More Posts

CIO.com – A CFO’s Take on This BYOD Thing

More Posts

CIO Insight – IT Management Slideshow: Inspiration and Advice From Leading CIOs

More Posts

TechNewsWorld: How to Choose a Data Center

More Posts

Arthur Cole – That Data Center Is A-Changin’

More Posts

Computerworld – A high-tech pioneer reflects on the digital revolution

More Posts

NetworkWorld – ‘Server huggers’ present obstacle to cloud adoption

More Posts

SearchCIO: CIO’s change management strategy gives left and right brain their due

More Posts

ZDNet – Line-of-business tech budgets may soon top IT department budgets: Gartner

More Posts