Data discovery: Defining a clear path to unlocking your most valuable asset

Data is now inevitable for every business. By the end of 2020, estimates found that 1.7 megabytes of data for every single person on the planet got produced each second. That’s 6 gigabytes per person (think storage for about 1,500 songs) created each hour.

In this world, it’s no longer a question of if your business will use data, but rather how you will use it. Specifically, how will you control it, manage it, secure it and — most importantly — use it effectively as a...

6 April 2021 | Data & Analytics

Bridging the gap between management and frontline teams with the cloud: A guide

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed two things about managers and the frontline teams they lead. First, the relationship between the two is almost entirely driven by technology — specifically cloud-based technologies — in this age of remote work. Second, many companies lack the technologies necessary to keep everyone linked together through an unprecedented event like the one we’ve experienced.

When shutdown orders forced offices to either close or start working in drastically...

30 March 2021 | Adoption

A guide to privileged access management: The doorman for the cloud

After a year when digital transformation took a quantum leap at most enterprises and remote work exploded, it’s no surprise that the majority of enterprise workloads are now running in cloud-based infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) offerings. 

This is creating a whole new set of security challenges around managing access to your organisation’s infrastructure across multiple cloud platforms—with all the various identities and configurations...

10 March 2021 | Data & Analytics

Databricks launches on Google Cloud to complete hyperscaler hat-trick

Data and analytics platform provider Databricks has launched availability on Google Cloud, adding to its Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure offerings.

The jointly developed service provides 'a simple, open lakehouse platform for data engineering, data science, analytics, and machine learning', in the words of Hiral Jasani, Databricks partner marketing manager, in a blog post.

This means Databricks is tightly integrated with Google Cloud compute, storage,...

18 February 2021 | Big Data

Test, test, and test some more: Emphasising the importance of DR testing

With Gartner estimating that the average cost of network downtime is $5,600 per minute or $336,000 per hour, few would argue that regular testing of a robust disaster recovery (DR) plan is essential for organisations. Even if you omit the financial implications, the lost productivity, missed opportunities, brand damage and potential data loss and SLA pay-outs associated with system downtime should be enough to keep even the most hardened IT professional up at night.

So,...

16 February 2021 | Data & Analytics

Public cloud demand accelerates during the pandemic: IDC’s analysis

The global enterprise IT modernisation and migration to SaaS cloud computing platforms has been accelerated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as more CIOs and CTOs adapt to the increased demand for flexible online working models that enable their knowledge worker employees to work from virtually anywhere.

Clearly, IT infrastructure vendors directly benefited from this phenomenon.

Vendor revenue from sales of IT infrastructure products for cloud environments -- including...

1 February 2021 | Data & Analytics

Data centre demand in 2020 leads execs to mull power upgrades for 2021

More than half (53%) of data centre professionals are likely to consider power system upgrades going forward - as data centre demand exploded in 2020.

That is the key finding from a new report by ABB Power Conversion. The report, 'Data Overload: Powering Data Centres in the New Normal', was published last week and polled 150 US-based data centre professionals and explored long-term impacts to shape future operations.

96% of data centre professionals surveyed said demand...

1 February 2021 | Architecture

Atos and OVHcloud team up as European cloud race gains pace

Atos and OVHcloud have announced a strategic partnership to 'create a trusted, 100% European cloud solution' - in another sign of Europe-based vendors looking to stronger data sovereignty and security.

The two companies, who both signed up to an initiative last week to make data centres in Europe climate neutral by 2030, will offer a 'market-leading multi-cloud solution.'

This will involve combining OVHcloud's expertise in cloud solutions based on sovereign...

26 January 2021 | Data & Analytics

Five tips for observability success amid cloud complexity

In 2020, the concept of observability in IT operations gained mindshare as IT leaders looked for new ways to rein in the complexity that’s grown organically with cloud computing and rapid digitisation.

Observability differs from IT monitoring in that it focuses on the development of the application and rich instrumentation so that operators can ask meaningful questions about how the software works or is working in production. The ability to ask new questions allows IT to gain...

22 January 2021 | Data & Analytics

Gaia-X ‘like King Canute stopping an incoming tide’ as European clouds struggle, analyst warns

An analyst has warned that efforts from European cloud providers to wrest market share from US-based hyperscalers is 'like King Canute attempting to stop an incoming tide'.

John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research Group, said that initiatives such as Gaia-X, a collaboration between the European Commission (EC), Germany, France, and various organisations within the continent, were 'laudable'.

Yet figures from Synergy show that while, since 2017, the European...

15 January 2021 | Data & Analytics