Failure to implement data management ‘could be disastrous’
Companies that neglect to implement a suitable data management strategy for their needs could be heading for disaster, according to one commentator.
A contributor to Business News Daily made the statement, adding that storing information on a central server is a great way to exert control over what is retained.
Such a set up could be ideal for organisations that "employs robust security", while the cost of such an arrangement is low, especially when compared with the costs required a few years ago.
NASA takes its Shared Services Center website to the cloud
NASA has put its Shared Services Center website into a secure government cloud to reduce call center inquiries and improve operational efficiencies.
NSSC is running live within RightNow Technologies’ Secure Government Cloud, which meets Federal Information Security Management Act and National Institute of Standards and Technology moderate security compliance levels, according to RightNow officials.
NASA Shared Services Center, located at the Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi, offers financial management, human resources, information technology and procurement services to NASA and its centers.
Egress Announces Technology Partnership with Global SaaS Provider MXSweep
Egress Software Technologies, an innovator in secure collaboration, announced today a technology partnership with SaaS provider MXSweep to incorporate email encryption into their service portfolio. With over 3,000 customers in 16 countries across the globe, MXSweep provides an extensive range of on-demand security services that includes email security, email content control & compliance, email disaster recovery, email & file archiving, and web and mobile security.
Cloud demands blend of business, technical skills
Arun Chandrasekaran, research director for Frost & Sullivan’s Asia-Pacific ICT practice, told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail the "cloud has the potential to shift manpower requirements from blue-collar IT workers to white-collar IT workers".
IBM Partners with SugarCRM and Ariba
As it looks to improve companies’ daily business interactions and effectiveness, IBM has announced new partnerships with SugarCRM and Ariba, as well as increased adoption of LotusLive public cloud services.
IBM also announced that the Australian Bureau of Statistics, C&D Foods, Crawford & Co., the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, General Milling, General Motors Components Holdings, and the Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia will benefit from its cloud initiatives.
Data deduplication solution ‘can save money’
Companies looking for ways in which to reduce their outgoings could do well to reduce the number of files they have stored on central servers using a data deduplication solution.
A blogger for the Register has suggested corporate information such as employee contracts and pensions advice is just one area in which an organisation can vastly reduce the number of individual copies that are stored.
However, a deduplication solution could yield "spectacular results" on backup data, which is often replicated on a weekly or even daily basis.
Making Old Computers Feel Brand New
Each time a new version of Windows is released, many computer users find that their hardware is suddenly outdated. For cash-strapped schools, upgrading to the latest hardware with each major software release is simply impossible. A New York startup called NeverWare is offering a possible solution—a server that lets even decade-old PCs upgrade to the latest Windows 7 operating system.
IT’s Preference for Private Clouds No Surprise
Earlier this week I wrote about how creating private clouds won’t be fast or easy. In addition to virtualizing their infrastructures, organizations will need to rearchitect their applications to standardize them as much as possible. Many experts also advise introducing a chargeback mechanism to acclimate business units to usage-based cost structures.
Data quality ‘critically important to governments’
Governments should have strategies in place to bring about high data quality standards, it has been advised.
This is the view of Laurence Miller, editor-at-large of the Future Gov website, who said public sector administrations create and manage much more information than private companies.
Despite this, many government departments are failing to get proper command over their records and are therefore unable to make the most of the data they have at their disposal.
Mr Miller recommended such bodies think about making use of data-as-a-service tools to aid their operations in this area.
Public Versus Private Cloud Distinction Starts to Blur
When it comes to the distinction between public and private cloud computing, the lines are starting to blur as most IT organizations try to figure out where they want to use each type of cloud computing platform.
A new survey of 100 senior IT managers conducted by Osterman Research on behalf of Electric Cloud, a provider of tools for managing the application development process in cloud computing environments, makes it clear that most IT organizations are still investigating the various forms of cloud computing, and as a result, the budgets being allocated for cloud computing in 2011 are, on average, not all that substantial.