Using agile development practices to improve team performance: A guide

As the world braves a global pandemic, organisations are continuously adapting to working remotely. While teams are working hard to stay productive during these difficult times, there is still a learning curve to acclimate to the current remote setup – a setup which now involves sharing workspaces with spouses, roommates and even rambunctious kids.

From my experience as a software developer all the way through my current role as a CTO, I’ve encountered a variety of work styles...

By | 10 July 2020 | Best Practice

Google Cloud and Renault partner for Industry 4.0 optimisation

Google Cloud has announced a new partnership with Groupe Renault to accelerate the digitisation of the automotive manufacturer's industrial system.

Renault, which has been developing its own digital platform to aggregate industrial data since 2016, will utilise Google Cloud for analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve its supply chain, production quality, as well as reducing environmental impact.

The move is being touted as a milestone for...

By | 9 July 2020 | Google

Alibaba Cloud extends reach to Europe, US and Asia Pacific through Equinix partnership

Data centre and interconnection provider Equinix has announced it is extending access to Alibaba Cloud for customers from 17 metros globally, including sites in Europe, Asia Pacific, and the United States.

The move will see Alibaba be able to access markets including Dubai, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. US metros, such as Chicago, Dallas and Denver, are also included in the partnership.

This is not to say Alibaba Cloud does not...

By | 8 July 2020 | Alibaba

Deutsche Bank signs up with Google Cloud for digital acceleration

Deutsche Bank is to sign a 'multi-year contract' with Google Cloud to transform its IT architecture, as well as utilise Google's AI and machine learning capabilities.

The two companies have signed a letter of intent with the contract being signed in the coming months. Google won the contract after a five month period of due diligence, with Deutsche Bank tendering proposals in February.

The bank 'will continue to work closely with its existing technology partners' as part...

By | 7 July 2020 | Applications

Why non-IT skills will be vital to IT success in 2020

Today, the value of our IT departments has expanded far beyond operations and technical support. This means the role of the IT pro is evolving to include wrangling the overlapping growing demands for technology across all departments within businesses. Traditional IT siloes have been broken down, radically changing how budgets are allocated and the types of skills IT pros now cite as essential to carry out their work. And in recent months this has been exemplified by a pandemic that has...

By | 7 July 2020 | CIO

Review: Commvault: Why sometimes all that glitters is not gold – but Metallic

Commvault has not only moved quickly to make its mark with SaaS offering Metallic, but its channel partnership with Microsoft could be a game-changer, as Ian Moyse writes

2020 is already a year of enhanced change and challenge, brought to us all by an unexpected requirement for en masse remote working. With this came a breadth of increased challenges for business, spanning people, process, and technology. The need for already challenged areas of security and data efficacy took on...

By | 6 July 2020 | Hybrid

Why the future of cloud infrastructure is all about the interconnection fabric

The future of cloud infrastructure means the traditional wide area network (WAN) needs to be architected and engineered differently to become a dynamic, automated, interconnection fabric between globally distributed data centre in the core and at the edge.

With the arrival of 5G networks and Industry 4.0, distributed cloud architectures are in the spotlight. Time-sensitive applications, such as industrial automation and autonomous vehicles, will use artificial intelligence (AI)...

By | 3 July 2020 | Architecture

VMware to acquire Datrium to bolster disaster recovery for hybrid cloud

VMware has announced its intent to acquire Datrium, a California-based provider of hybrid cloud infrastructure, adding further options to its disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) offerings.

The move is designed with VMware's continued focus on hybrid cloud in mind - with the company citing an IDC forecast showing DRaaS was the fastest growing segment for data protection use cases, with a $4.5bn market at 15% CAGR.

The company has - as CloudTech's analysis from VMworld...

By | 1 July 2020 | Disaster Recovery

Red Hat looks to move SAP managed services on-premises in new partnership

Red Hat is collaborating with SAP and IBM, its parent company, to help move SAP managed services on-premises.

The companies are looking to validate private deployments of SAP Cloud Platform as well as tie up related backing services on Red Hat OpenShift. By combining Gardener, an SAP managed Kubernetes service, and virtualisation capabilities on OpenShift, the companies hope to provide a more seamless ramp for on-premise deployments.

"For SAP Cloud Platform...

By | 1 July 2020 | Hybrid

Get your SaaS up to speed: Three productivity-killing data problems and how to solve them

With the typical enterprise using hundreds of SaaS solutions, each with its own database, it’s no wonder business leaders complain their data is siloed. Imagine now that a CEO wants to understand the relationship between data in these disparate systems. All of a sudden, she’s looking at the world’s most confusing dashboard, all the while wondering: Can I trust this information? The CEO placates herself with that knowledge that at least she has data to look at, but in the end it...

By | 30 June 2020 | Big Data