Since the birth of corporate computing, the data centre has been a mainstay. Like filing cabinets, notepads and the occasional wonky chair, the data centre forged its place at the heart of a profitable, effective organisation. Long had it been the de facto vehicle for all application deployment and, whether that organisation worked in retail, finance or IT, the relationship has served both the users and business well.

However, like many relationships, sometimes a head can be turned by something shiny and...

IBM has had another solid cloud quarter – and now the company is extending its collaboration with telecoms provider CenturyLink to beef up enterprise connectivity in new markets.

The move is part of a wider initiative, the IBM Cloud Direct Link Service Provider Program, which enables IBM customers to select their preferred provider for direct connectivity to IBM’s cloud. The initiative is available in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific with 21 partners on board including Digital Realty and...

• Identities, not systems, are the new security perimeter for any digital business, with 81% of breaches involving weak, default or stolen passwords.
• 53% of enterprises feel they are more susceptible to threats since 2015.
• 51% of enterprises suffered at least one breach in the past 12 months and malicious insider incidents increased 11% year-over-year.

These and many other fascinating insights are from SecurIT: the Zero Trust Summit for CIOs and CISOs held last month in San Francisco, CA.

Enterprises have a serious appetite to move their resources to the cloud at one level – but a lack of skills and resistance to change from some quarters is holding organisations back.

That’s the key finding from new research from global cloud provider Skytap. The study, in conjunction with 451 Research, may have many rolling their eyes in a manner suggesting they have seen it before – yet it still proves companies are not getting to grips with the change.

More than two thirds (67%) of the...

Manufacturers deal with sensitive data every day. This includes test and quality data, warranty information, device history records, and especially the engineering specifications for a product that are highly confidential. Trusting that data to a cloud-based application or cloud services provider is a major step, and manufacturers need to fully educate themselves about the security risks and advantages of cloud-based software.

As we prepare to enter the second...

With the ability to generate a staggering $1.5 trillion in revenues every year, cybercrime is big business. It’s the perfect model – earn a high income for minimum effort and risk of penalty.

It comes as no surprise then that when faced with issues around the fluctuating value of Bitcoin, cybercriminals stepped into action. These savvy criminals created a new attack technique that offers better paid out odds in...

Google is set to acquire enterprise cloud migration provider Velostrata, citing the Israel-based company’s ‘technical strength’ as key alongside potential capabilities for their customers around advanced data analytics and machine learning.

Velostrata’s primary goal is to speed up enterprise’s cloud transitions through what it calls ‘real-time agentless workload streaming’ – in other words, decoupling compute from storage without an effect on performance....

As enterprises are embracing the cloud, SD-WAN is more likely to be on the table for their technological roadmaps.

This is the primary finding from a survey conducted by analyst firm IHS Markit. The WAN Strategies North America study found almost three quarters (74%) of organisations polled conducted SD-WAN lab trials in 2017, with many of these moving into production trials and, eventually, live production, this year.

Investments in wide area networks more generally continue undimmed, with the adoption of...

The modern-day enterprise is conscious of the environment, and with many corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes, you will of course find recycling schemes or even smart lights that switch themselves off when no one is in the room, all in order to save energy. But when we look at the biggest energy drain of any organisation, our IT system, we rarely consider measures we can take to reduce this.

As the most likely cause of major power, data centres are the first place to look when considering energy...

German software giant SAP has announced the launch of its Digital Manufacturing Cloud, which will enable manufacturing providers to deploy Industry 4.0 technologies in the cloud.

The announcement was made at the 2018 Hannover Messe, the yearly technological jamboree for all things industrial. The product includes business system integration, meaning greater visibility for the shop floor, as well as predictive analytics and a cloud-based collaboration system connecting customers with manufacturing service...

In the evolving global networked economy, every type of company essentially becomes a technology-oriented firm - in one form or another. That's fueling the strategic investment in IT infrastructure and services. Currency market changes are another key factor.

As a result, worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.7 trillion in 2018 -- that's an increase of 6.2 percent from 2017, according to the latest market study by Gartner. Senior executives and line of business leaders continue to drive many...

Google Cloud has unveiled major security revamps to its portfolio, across Google Cloud Platform (GCP), G Suite, Chrome Enterprise, and more.

The company has made 20 announcements in total in conjunction with the CEO Security Forum in New York. GCP had no fewer than eight notes, with alpha services around security perimeters and cloud asset management the highlights.

VPC Service Controls aims to stop identity mismanagement, misconfigured policies and compromised virtual machines by creating a security...

The rise of multi-cloud has helped secure another M&A deal in the cloud division: enterprise cloud services provider Nutanix has announced the acquisition of Netsil, an app mapping, discovery and management software provider.

Netsil, based in San Francisco, aims to give enterprises complete visibility into all of their applications and services. In the words of the company, its ‘algorithm-based and non-invasive technology helps to achieve visibility and control at scale while keeping application...

It’s a simple proposition for traditional companies in today’s tech-heavy marketplace: assess the prospects of technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, the Internet of Things and more, or be left behind.

That is the verdict of mergers and acquisitions advisor Hampleton Partners in its latest report focusing on the tech M&A outlook up until 2020.

Back in August,...

More companies are leveraging the power of APIs, but only a small minority has found a sustainable way to create and manage them.

That’s the key finding from API platform provider Jitterbit in its latest report. The study, titled ‘2018 State of API Integration’, found that of 450 companies surveyed, two in five (40%) had created APIs to expose internal data ‘as a service’ to both internal departments and external partners. More than half (57%) added that competitors in their...

Inbound marketing software provider HubSpot is adopting Google Cloud to expand its international cloud infrastructure.

HubSpot will use the Google Cloud Platform Frankfurt region to provide outage and data protection, as well as support local customer data.

The company has long since been a customer of Google, particularly G Suite, with integrations for Google Calendar, Gmail, AdWords, Docs, and Drive being among the most popular among HubSpot users.

Kerry Munz, director of engineering and platform...

Information and communications technology (ICT) is an enabler of economic progress, and a driving force of the Global Networked Economy. Those organizations that have mastered the applications of next-generation technologies are making waves of market disruption everywhere. That said, expect more of the same, at an accelerated pace in future.

Worldwide spending on ICT will be nearly $4 trillion in 2018, according to the latest global market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Ongoing growth will be...

Updating or modernising key legacy applications and moving them to the cloud has become a high priority for organisations as they pursue digital transformation. But for various reasons, some legacy applications will have been deemed best left alone, left to run on in-house systems.

But as ever smarter cloud-accessible technologies become available, offering massive data processing capabilities, machine learning and artificial intelligence for example, the reasons for continuing to leave these remaining...

Three in five enterprises will move the majority of their IT away from enterprise data centres and onto public cloud infrastructure and software as a service (SaaS), according to a new report from 451 Research.

The study, the analyst firm’s inaugural Voice of the Enterprise Digital Pulse survey, polled more than 1,000 IT professionals worldwide, finding the largest spending increase for IT teams this year is for ‘as a service’ delivery.

Naturally, providers such as Microsoft and Amazon Web...

• Digitally transforming enterprises (63%) is the leading factor driving greater public cloud engagement or adoption today.
• 66% of IT professionals say security is their most significant concern in adopting an enterprise cloud computing strategy.
• 50% of IT professionals believe artificial intelligence and machine learning are playing a role in cloud computing adoption today, growing to 67% by 2020.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning will be the leading catalyst driving greater cloud computing adoption by 2020.

These insights and findings are from