The use of cloud computing is growing, and by 2016 this growth will increase to become the bulk of new IT spend, according to Gartner. 2016 will be a defining year for cloud as private cloud begins to give way to hybrid cloud, and nearly half of large enterprises will have hybrid cloud deployments by the end of 2017. “Overall, there are very real trends toward cloud platforms, and also toward massively scalable processing. Virtualization, […]
virtualization
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Virtualization has become the key technology underpinning ‘cloud-era’ IT infrastructure because the ability to deploy virtual instances of servers, desktop PCs, storage devices and network resources allows existing hardware to be utilised efficiently, and makes for much better manageability, flexibility and scalability. The graphs below highlight adoption trends across various implementations and applications:
Infrastructure is expensive. So it’s no wonder that many businesses traditionally would often spend the bare minimum to get up and running without considering their long term needs. Fast forward to today, and virtualization infrastructure is not only cheap to set up, it doesn’t require any major specialized knowledge to get started. Even the smallest businesses (start-ups especially) generally have at least one or two servers that they use to host their services, but they’re […]
Many design and construction companies affected by Hurricane Sandy harnessed the powers of technology to serve their clients and remain operational in the aftermath of the storm. Investments that paid off the best were virtualization tools and cloud-based private networks, say some firms. To communicate, most firms rerouted e-mail, sent out mass e-cards or used social media to alert clients and employees with key updates. Others went to much greater lengths and the difference showed. […]
Security issues in industrial markets have been receiving much attention in the media. The vast majority of devices that power infrastructures offer aging technology in many cases and are not well prepared for the latest cyber security threats. Taking the energy grid as an example: one does not have to be a scientist to find the holes when approximately 70% of the infrastructure is more than 30 years old. Devices that were never designed for […]
Enterprises are beginning to change their buying behaviors based on the deployment speed, economics and customization that cloud-based technologies provide. Gartner cautions however that enterprises are far from abandoning their on-premise models and applications entirely for the cloud. Based on an analysis of the Gartner Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing, 2012, the best results are being attained by enterprises that focus on a very specific strategy and look to cloud-based technologies to accelerate their performance. […]
I think the enterprises of the future will look very different from those of today. Organizations will become leaner and more virtualized as their business processes grow more reliant on ecosystem partners. Process boundaries will transcend a specific entity. Many macroeconomists believe that real shareholder value (and, ultimately, economic growth) will be driven by the speed and quality of innovation. Historically, enterprises have been successful by capitalizing on a disruption (market transition) that plays into […]
Virtualization has “virtually” changed the IT world in which we all work and play. Why is virtualization so attractive to IT administrators? The answer is easy — there are many uses and benefits that we gain through virtualization. For starters, the thought of being able to have a single server’s physical footprint represent many servers on the network has been a boon to administrators looking to consolidate space and reduce operation costs. Having the ability […]
Biggest spending is going towards tablets, cloud and virtualization, according to a new study. Small and medium-sized businesses are spending more money on IT, including adopting tablets, cloud services and virtualization to a greater extent, according to Spiceworks’ State of SMB IT survey. IT budgets at companies with fewer than 1,000 employees grew 6 percent in the first half of 2012 from the second half of 2011, and 15 percent year-over-year, according to the survey. […]
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meshIP, LLC is please to announce the launch of two new services! meshIP was formed five years ago and has specialized in company formation, business plan development, funding and growth strategies. We are adding to our capabilities to assist small and mid-sized firms in their growth by offering hosted computing and telecommunications services. These offerings allow our clients to get out of the IT business and focus on their business. Our meshDESK service offering allows […]
Having attained some basic oversight and policy control over personal devices in the enterprise, corporate IT administrators in 2012 face the appification of enterprise services. Opening up platforms such as iOS and Android to outside developers brings an increased risk of malware. Mobile virtualization enables one physical device to run two parallel virtual phones, supporting enterprise and personal use without compromising enterprise security or personal privacy. These next-generation mobile devices will have quad-core Cortex-A15 processors […]
As the second law of thermodynamics tells us, all things trend toward chaos and this is no less true with a virtual environment. Sprawl can have a real security impact, and it takes discipline and planning to control sprawl — discipline and planning that won’t occur without someone from the security team actively monitoring the problem and formulating strategies for how to address the issue. Virtualization has been one of the most rapidly and widely […]
Virtualization and the server consolidation that it delivers will be the top priority for chief information officers in 2012, according to a survey by the research firm IDC. Savings from server consolidation will be invested in new IT initiatives such as cloud computing, mobility, data analytics, and use of social media for business purposes. When CIOs were asked by IDC to name their top three IT priorities for this year, nearly 40 percent of them […]
Once viewed as the formula for desktop PC provisioning and management roles, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) technology is moving into the mainstream via a new path, as a solution for business services. Most enterprise administrators have viewed Virtual Desktop Infrastructure as a way to deliver enterprise desktops to users more efficiently. However, VDI can deliver more than just a typical business desktop; the technology can also be used to deliver specialized business services. A case […]
Desktop virtualization is the use of several virtualization technologies, either together or separately. Let’s look at each of these cases in turn: When “desktop virtualization” is used to describe making it possible for people to access a physical or virtual system remotely, access virtualization technology is used to capture the user interface portion of an application. It is then converted to a neutral format and projected across the network to a device that can display […]
It’s clear by the increasing use of analytics software that companies are struggling to get their hands around the huge amounts of data it takes to run a successful business. But developing social, mobile, cloud computing and other applications are also driving the need for new technical skills. Those were some of the key trends found in IBM’s 2011 Tech Trends Report released today that surveyed 4,000 IT professionals from 93 countries and 25 industries […]
Cloud computing has flunked a security test, reports Tim Wilson at Dark Reading. That probably doesn’t surprise you. Conventional wisdom says clouds are inherently insecure. But are they? Or are clouds actually more secure than conventional IT environments? A growing number of technologists are making that argument. And they’re not cloud vendors or marketers or startups who have placed their bet on the cloud. They’re some of the senior-most technology officials in government, including those […]
The industry roils with definitions and explanations of cloud. These definitions come from product vendors cloud-washing their products, cloud providers positioning their cloud infrastructure, IT teams attempting to cloud-paint their efforts in virtualization, and even from consultants writing articles like this. This article will examine the essence of cloud and will provide a solid working foundation against which progress toward the cloud can be objectively assessed. The Cloud Deployment Model Cloud computing is essentially a […]
While conventional wisdom says virtualized environments and public clouds create massive security headaches, the godfather of Xen, Simon Crosby, says virtualization actually holds a key to better security. Isolation — the ability to restrict what computing goes on in a given context — is a fundamental characteristic of virtualization that can be exploited to improve trustworthiness of processes on a physical system even if other processes have been compromised, says Crosby, a creator of the […]
Virtualization has been a boon for multiuser systems, letting them run the Windows operating system and applications on servers. Each user’s state is saved as a virtual desktop that can be remotely accessed from PCs, laptops, netbooks, tablets, smartphones and even dumb “thin clients” (terminals costing as little as $200). The downside is that remote users of server-hosted virtualization need to be online to take advantage of the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)—a show-stopper for highly […]
People are only just starting to understand new technological trends such as virtualization and cloud computing, when along comes a phenomenon called “Big Data.” That trend doesn’t really focus on burgeoning content or data encouraged by all those cloud activities. Big Data is all about tools and processes that allow organizations to manage and analyze very large data sets that yield insights from which the business may profit. According to storage provider and cloud solution […]
Virtualization makes it possible to bring corporate desktops and applications to any mobile device that suits an employee’s fancy. This flies in the face of vendors that are positioning their tablet PCs as more “enterprise ready” than Apple’s iPad, the predominant device in desktop virtualization deployments. HP, RIM and Cisco vociferously insist that their tablets are more than just iPad clones and come with much stronger security and management capabilities. Which is understandable since these […]
If potential cost savings are driving your desktop virtualization decision, beware the ROI killer: Over-provisioning. Over-provisioning is a nice way of saying you’re throwing money away. That could happen in a variety of forms, such as buying infrastructure that it better suited for a much larger company, planning for growth that doesn’t happen, or not doing your homework on what other technology you’ll need to support virtualization. But fear of wasteful spending shouldn’t stop you […]
A quick look at the trends facing most CIOs should send anyone with a large IT budget into a state of worry. In every dimension, CIOs are facing an increased pace of change at the same time they are losing control over the computing environment. The number of assets they must manage is exploding. Consumerization, virtualization, cloud computing, software as a service, mobility are all increasing the complexity of the job of managing IT by […]
One of the topics most associated with cloud computing is its cost advantages, or lack thereof. One way the topic gets discussed is “capex vs. opex,” a simple formulation, but one fraught with meaning. At its simplest, capex vs. opex is how compute resource is paid for by the consumer of those resources. For example, if one uses Amazon Web Services, payment is made on a highly granular level for the use of the resources […]
Have you found yourself wondering what’s wrong with all of the marketing mavens out there in virtualization land? It seems that everything is virtualization and nothing is virtualization. Over the years, I’ve developed a tool or a model that has helped my clients better understand all of the layers of virtualization technology so that they could sort out what would be useful and what doesn’t fit in their world (or their network for that matter). […]
Flash memory is much faster than hard disks, but too expensive for most enterprises to place onboard servers. Startup FlashSoft on Tuesday announced software that aims to solve this problem by caching data in flash memory onboard servers, a technique that it claims can dramatically boost the performance of storage networks at little additional cost. The company is also launching itself, announcing a $3 million funding round and plans for future expansion. “We give you […]
Unified communications is entering its own hype cycle, like that of cloud computing, virtualization, and color TV before it, as vendors tout their “me-too” solutions in a familiar history repeating itself pattern. UC brings together such capabilities as voice, videoconferencing, instant messaging, email, document sharing, and more into one user interface so employees of one company, their partners, and even customers can collaborate with each other across the corporate campus or across oceans. A recently […]
Desktop virtualisation presents many technical choices but they could turn out to be the easy bit. Licensing the software is where it all gets difficult, especially when the software is Microsoft Windows. The problem is that Windows licensing is based on the assumption that you install software on hardware, but virtualisation abstracts the hardware away. “Microsoft does not sell a user licence for clients accessing or running Windows. Customers often want to license Windows based […]