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Figures from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) reveal more than half (51%) of organisations polled with between 21 and 200 employees and almost three quarters (72%) of firms with more than 200 employees are still reliant on Windows Server 2003, despite the support from Microsoft having expired on July 14.

Naturally, this may not be the most surprising news you will read today. Back in April, this publication spoke with hybrid IT provider Zynstra and cloud storage provider CTERA Networks and concluded...

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A cloud migration project can be a relatively simple exercise, where applications are migrated ‘as is’, to gain benefits such as elastic capacity and utility pricing, but without making any changes to the application architecture, software development methods or business processes it is used for.

There may be a clear business for doing so, such as the hardware platform becoming obsolete; however the organisation overall won’t realise any additional benefits...

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The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) has called on cloud service providers (CSPs) to do more to assist with the process of cloud migration for their customers after new research reveals difficulties associated with moving to the cloud.

The CIF survey, which polled 250 senior IT and business decision-makers from the public and private sectors, found only 10% of respondents saying their transition to cloud services “could not have been improved.” 38% of those polled said they had...

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Workers in small to medium businesses (SMBs) feel happier and more productive when using cloud apps in their day to day work, according to new research from Kronos.

The study, which focused on 1000 European knowledge workers in SMBs, notes how late many small businesses are in moving to the cloud, arguing SMB leaders are “yet to realise [its] strategic value”. Yet almost two thirds (63%) believe the majority of their...

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Updated Everyone occasionally likes a comfortable pair of shoes. Businesses, when forced to upgrade their legacy tech, are no different. UK-based cloud provider Exponential-e has sounded a dire warning to enterprises hoping to cling onto their Windows Server 2003 deployments as the 100 day countdown to support switch-off begins at Microsoft towers.

The arguments against keeping Windows Server 2003, which will have support stopped on July 14, are straightforward; it’ll be a hacker’s...

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When start-ups and enterprises first evaluate cloud providers, they often choose an out of the box solution that fits their immediate needs. Their hosting provider promises great customer service, but they have essentially the same stack as thousands of other customers and still need a large SysOps staff to monitor their infrastructure.

This solution may be adequate for several months or even years. But most enterprises ultimately find that a one-size-fits-all cloud solution no longer actually...

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The rapid diffusion for the cloud computing paradigm and promised benefits for the adoption of cloud infrastructure are attracting a growing number of businesses and organisations.

Of course, it is essential for organisations to maximise the benefits of migration to cloud architecture by reducing costs and minimising risks. Cloud computing represents a fundamental change in how companies use and provide their services. For many businesses of small and medium size, it represents a...

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As we’re now full swing into 2015, there is certainly a greater understanding over the potential – and the limitations – of cloud computing. Research from NTT Communications has explored the varying issues and argued there needs to be a smoother migration path from the corporate data centre to the cloud.

Similarly, even though cloud will claim a growing share of IT budgets in coming years, many IT decision makers don’t believe it is living up to its potential.

The...

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The playground for cloud infrastructure providers is busy, as the most recent  Gartner report shows, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), though being challenged by Microsoft Azure, still look like the unattainable leader. What makes Amazon appear a cure-all solution and how many of its services de facto bring tangible benefits to cloud neophytes?

AWS comes with a stack of tempting benefits such as elastic...

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Nearly half of organisations polled in a recent survey admitted they had failed or stalled their cloud hosting implementations, with a further half claiming they had to alter their budget and a whopping 70% force to make changes to their design.

These are the latest figures from a study of 358 respondents conducted by INetU and THINKStrategies entitled “The Adventures of Moving to the Cloud”, which aims to show CIOs and business managers it’s not a “walk in...

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By Chris Chesley, Solutions Architect

Many SMBs struggle with deciding if and what to move to the cloud. Whether it’s security concerns, cost, or lack of expertise, it’s often difficult to map the best possible solution. Here are eight applications and services to consider when your organization is looking to move to the cloud and reduce their server footprint.

What to move to the cloud

1. Email

Obviously in this day and age email is a...

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The Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC) has published a new document assessing best practice for migrating applications to the cloud, including data transfer requirements and application performance management (APM).

The latest 16 page release is a supplementary document to the 28 page behemoth (pdf) released in December 2013 outlining a migration roadmap for businesses in six easy steps; assess...

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The cost and functional benefits of migrating services to the cloud have been well documented, but as more solutions are introduced to the market, choosing the right one is presenting many businesses with a real challenge. The industry is becoming increasingly crowded, so we have simplified the research process and singled out five key things organisations may not know about the cloud to help them make the most informed decision.  

Beware of hidden costs

Many businesses...

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Danish beer brand Carlsberg is rolling out Microsoft Office 365 for greater enterprise collaboration, according to details of a customer case study from Redmond.

Carlsberg is rolling out this technology initiative under the banner of ‘GloCal’, which “aims for global efficiency while staying true to its local roots,” and chose Microsoft Office 365 as the optimal solution.

Employees use a full range of Microsoft products: Exchange Online for email; Lync as a...

You know the cloud has taken over when even the most reticent of industries - legal, financial - shift to the cloud, and even discuss Europe-wide private clouds specifically for their industry.

It seemed for a long time that the traditional reasons for moving to the cloud - i.e. reduced cost, increased flexibility - were the key drivers behind the shift towards cloud-delivered software, but some professions are seeing wider benefits. Let's look at the example of Human Resources - another of those industries...

The latest edition of Six of the Best, featuring the CloudTech editorial team’s favourite links from around the web, has either a slightly hotchpotch feel to it, or covers an extremely wide range of cloud computing stories over the past couple of weeks. We’ll leave it up to you to decide.  

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This blog post is for informational and educational purposes only. Any legal information provided in this post should not be relied upon as legal advice. It is not intended to create, and does not create, an attorney-client relationship and readers should not act upon the information presented without first seeking legal counsel.

In a profession notorious for being slow to change, cloud-based solutions for many of the traditionally office-based systems like...

Cloud computing services and technology is on the cusp of mass adoption by the legal industry, according to a report from LexisNexis.

Nearly three quarters (72.4%) of firms surveyed said they were more likely to use the cloud this year, with adoption levels among attorneys in smaller firms hitting 40% - a number which is 10% higher than previous surveys.

This consensus is so grounded that, for the majority (38.7%) of the over 275 respondents, cloud systems will overtake on-premise in the legal profession...

Keeping up with the day-to-day HR needs of a growing workforce can significantly affect your efficiency. Paperwork, approvals, requests for information and staying compliant: all take you away from your strategic focus. A cloud-based HR system can help remove the administrative stress from your growing HR needs and allow you to concentrate on your business.

You already use the cloud

It’s amazing how many people are aware of ‘The Cloud’ but don’t...

You can’t move at the moment for surveys advocating the importance of hybrid cloud strategy – and this latest one, from Rackspace Hosting and conducted by Vanson Bourne, is no different.

60% of IT top brass see the hybrid cloud as the bright, shiny future for IT operations, with a third of that number (19%) completely integrated, compared to only 41% who are partially hybrid-oriented.

The primary reason for hybrid adoption over pure public cloud systems was more control, according to 59% of those...