To manage application performance, Evolution Benefits starts right at the source -- the code itself. "We sell our performance and uptime," explains Sean Erwin, vice president of application development for the U.S.-based company.
How many identities will be stolen or corporate assets commandeered before you build as strong a fortress around your database as you do around the perimeter? Millions? Dare I say, billions?
Server virtualization is hotter than hot, ignited by the technology's use in creating a more compact, highly flexible and cost-efficient server infrastructure. Survey results from Forrester Research, for example, show that 75 percent of 1,200 respondents at global enterprises are aware of server virtualization technology, with 26 percent having implemented it and another 8 percent set to pilot it within the next year. Also telling is that 60 percent of the respondents who have implemented the technology plan to expand their use.
Strategic planning - love it or hate it - is part of your job. Once a year, or maybe as often as every quarter, you are called to predict the future and think big. Do this well and you will increase your company's competitive advantage, bringing yourself and your team the accolades (and budgets) you deserve.
Who needs steel when you've got storage? Not Pittsburgh transplant Greg Ganger, that's for sure.
When it comes to the automation portion of a new data centre strategy, remember the desktop.
IT experts give pointers on how one fictitious company, called NoName, can solve its IT problems using new data centre principles and technologies. Beth Schultz reports
With a corporate ad slogan extolling "It's everywhere you want to be" and a payments network that indeed serves nearly every country in the world, you can bet Visa IT executives feel the onus of availability and reliability.
Planning the new data center means more than plotting out server consolidation and virtualization. It also means knowing the effect these have on overall data center design. Bob Doherty, a 30-year IT veteran, studies such issues for the Data Center Institute, a think tank run by AFCOM, an association for data center professionals. In an interview with Beth Schultz, Doherty describes what he calls the new data center's "physiology" -- and explains why conditions might deteriorate quickly.
Executive power starts with personal integrity. Who has it? That's one question I posed to a group of venture capitalists and executive recruiters recently when I asked them to help me build an ultimate network industry "Dream Team."
Before Mike Johnson took a job as network administrator with the Urban Development Department for the city of Tulsa, Okla., he found himself in a job-hunting quandary. He was getting screened out of interview opportunities by hiring interns and headhunters who knew nothing beyond what acronyms to look for in a resume.
Benevolent entanglement. The phrase might be a mouthful, but the concept is what building an extended enterprise network ought to be all about, says Brandon Lackey, portal program manager at US energy industry giant Halliburton. In other words, involve customers and suppliers in a business ecosystem that provides such high value, so simply, few would leave it.
When US petroleum giants Ultramar Diamond Shamrock Corp. and Valero Energy Corp. finalized their megamerger in December, the task of protecting two gargantuan data storage architectures became urgent.
Talk about a birthday present. Just days before turning the big 3-0, Mike Nelson reached a career height to which professional peers twice his age often aspire.
Some of you have undoubtedly earned bragging rights for network projects that you and your team have just wrapped up. If your higher-ups are smart, they've already rewarded you for your initiative in improving customer service, entering new markets or helping boost the bottom line. Now it's time for industry recognition.