Grazed from TelecomRamblings. Author: Matt Smith.

Bring your own device (BYOD) strategies are becoming more prevalent in various industries, but often little effort is expended in the management of devices and security. Fortunately, many companies are starting to consider their options in this area. The benefits of allowing staff to use their own devices have been fairly well established, but that doesn’t mean that all the concerns have simply gone away. While there are many efficiency and budgetary gains to be had, there will always remain the possibility of a device getting lost or compromised, leading to a wide range of problems for the company.

IT teams must implement many different measures and processes around the network to provide all the advantages to the employees while still protecting the company’s sensitive data. With so many mobile devices, apps, and operating systems trying to connect to the network, BYOD has certainly posed some challenges on this front. However, cloud computing offers a number of solutions that directly address these issues…

Grazed from SilverPeak. Author: Mike Laverick.

A study conducted by Enterprise Strategy Group found data backup and recovery to be the second most important IT priority for organizations over the next 12 months. The survey, conducted on behalf of Silver Peak, also revealed how critical data is perceived to be to an organization’s success.

Limited bandwidth, congestion, and latency due to distance make replicating data across a WAN or to the cloud challenging. These factors can lead to an increase Wide Area Network (WAN) infrastructure costs and significantly affect total cost of ownership (TCO) for offsite data protection and disaster recovery. Silver Peak addresses these challenges to help storage professionals meet recovery point objectives (RPOs), increase geographic distances between datacenters, and reduce bandwidth expenditures normally associated with WANs…

To view infographic and read more from the source, visit http://blog.silver-peak.com/disaster-recovery-roi-infographic

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Brian Wallace.

Today, networking takes place both through data centers and on the cloud. How was the system born and where is it going? The Ethernet cable, a common household essential even today, was invented in 1973 by Xerox PARC. From here, it would take seven years before a basis of Ethernet standards would be published.

Ethernet slowly improved over the next 25 years until, in 1995, Ethernet was standardized to “Fast Ethernet” — 100Mbps. As Ethernet turned 40 years old in 2013, the technology had been universally implemented, but the rate of innovation had slowed to a crawl. Finally, in 2010, Ethernet standardization increased to 40Gbps and 100Gbps…

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Darryl K. Taft.

At its IBM Impact 2014 conference, IBM launched its IBM Cloud Marketplace as way to deliver its portfolio of cloud services from both IBM and partners to the world at large. The new cloud marketplace provides a simple and easy experience for three key user groups within the enterprise: Developers, IT managers and business leaders can now learn about, try and buy software and services from IBM and its global partner ecosystem.

With the new marketplace, IBM joins the ranks of cloud competitors such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and Google, among others, that offer services via cloud computing. IBM has previously clearly stated its intent to become the leader in the cloud computing space, aiming squarely at AWS and its market-leading position…

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Ghostery, Inc. a global marketing technology company that provides online transparency and control to individuals and businesses, announced today that it will host a live complimentary webinar titled, "Guide to Marketing Cloud Management with Equifax," on Wednesday, May 7, from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM ET. This will be Ghostery’s first of three webinars focused on Marketing Cloud Management (MCM). Registration is available on a dedicated page within the Ghostery website, here.

This first webinar in the series will feature Nicole Keiter, Director of Media Strategy & Optimization at Equifax along with Amy King, VP of Product Marketing at Ghostery Enterprise describing how Equifax is achieving greater success with its marketing strategy by better managing its marketing cloud. Both participants will share insights on how enterprises can avoid the real risks of an out-of-control marketing cloud with proper management, and successfully navigate a constantly changing digital marketing landscape…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Fortinet®, a global leader in high-performance network security — today announced support for secure access to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. As organizations continue to migrate mission critical applications to the cloud, secure access to sensitive data and application workloads remains critically important. Starting today, customers can immediately benefit from a secure virtual private network (VPN) access to Microsoft’s Azure cloud offering while leveraging Fortinet’s broad and multi-layered security technologies across network, application and content security.

"Microsoft Azure’s cloud scalability, performance and economic benefits make it a convincing choice for customers wanting to leverage the cloud while continuing to use existing on-premises infrastructure," said Venkat Gattamneni, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft. "These customers require secure VPN access from office and branch networks to the cloud, and Fortinet’s next-generation firewall platforms extend on-premises datacenters to the cloud while enabling security."…

Grazed from MorningStar. Author: Peter Wahlstrom.

IBM (IBM) has announced a 15.8% increase to its quarterly dividend to $1.10 from $0.95, which was slightly above our expectation of a 10% hike. With its 19th annual increase, IBM’s payout ratio ticks slightly above 25% and should bring the annual dividend payment to nearly $4.4 billion. There is no change to our $212 fair value estimate or wide moat rating based on the news, and as the firm prepares for its investor day in mid-May, we continue to believe that management’s capital allocation strategy will (even if indirectly) remain in focus…

As IBM becomes a more specialized, software-based service provider, we generally agree with the strategic bets that the firm is making, like its smarter planet, growth markets, business analytics, and cloud/data center initiatives. However, IBM is generating about $17 billion in free cash annually but spending $6 billion and $4 billion on research and development and capital expenditures, respectively, and we believe that many investors are hoping for these investments to result in more than low-single-digit top-line growth over the medium term…

Grazed from CloudWorldSeries.  Author: Event Announcement.

Welcome back to the Cloud World Forum Africa 2014 – Africa’s Largest Cloud & ICT Event for Enterprise & Telecom Professionals!  Following the huge success of the Cloud World Forum Africa 2013, we’re expanding & enhancing our agenda to give you Africa’s first and foremost comprehensive Enterprise ICT show: Cloud World Forum Africa incorporating Enterprise ICT Africa 2014!

Download our post-show report – find out who attended, what was discussed and how to get in touch to get involved in next year’s show today!…

Grazed from CDMMedia.  Author: Event Announcement.

The Big Data Summit, to be held on May 11-13 2014, in Dallas, Texas USA, offers innovative members of the vendor community a unique opportunity to meet with leading IT executives eager to hear about new big data solutions. As a sponsor, you will have the opportunity to outline your product or service during interactive educational sessions and networking breaks with guaranteed budget holders and decision-makers.

One-on-one Executive Exchange meetings, arranged to match unique executive challenges with appropriate solutions, are held throughout the summit to allow you to go over specific details and address individual questions and concerns…

Grazed from VentureBeat.  Author: Event Announcement.

VentureBeat hosted our inaugural DataBeat event in 2013, and it was a smash success, bringing together some of the top data scientists, analysts, investors, and entrepreneurs in the field of big data.

Returning on May 19-20, DataBeat will be laser-focused on helping companies increase profitability through big data and smart analytics tools.  Growth-oriented executives want to use data to drive their decisions, but they’re confronting a bewildering set of options. We’re gathering the brightest minds in the industry to filter the noise and give new insights on technologies and strategies that will accelerate growth.

For more information and registration, visit http://venturebeat.com/events/databeat2014/