News

• Lessons learned in my virtual desktop integration (VDI) deployment

  As the IT infrastructure manager at Digital Intelligence Systems LLC (DISYS), an IT solutions company, I recently initiated the build-out of a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to support our large mobile workforce, and learned some important lessons along the way that may help smooth the way for your VDI rollout.

• Practical advice about disaster recovery planning

  Disaster recovery plans and the usual mix of uninterrupted power supplies (UPSs), co-location services, data mirroring and hot-standby technologies theoretically make it possible to weather any storm. But are backup systems, replication rules and fast failover solutions enough?

• Forrester: Windows 8 faces uphill battle as corporate desktop

  Windows 8 faces an uphill battle to become a standard corporate operating system because many businesses are in the midst of or have recently completed the move from Windows XP to Windows 7 and don't have the stomach for another transition anytime soon.

• ServiceNow wants to be the cloud for IT

  Many enterprise IT shops may be reluctant to jump head first into cloud computing. After all, there are a variety of concerns that come with using the cloud, from security to integrations with existing systems, and perhaps most scary: What the cloud will mean for your IT job.

• Could this be the business world's answer to Google Glass?

  While the big news in wearable computers is obviously centered on Google Glass, one company at Google's own developer conference in San Francisco this week is showcasing the beginnings of a different but potentially very important addition to the world of headware.

• Google rolls out by-the-minute cloud billing, introduces a new NoSQL database

  Google, attempting to build its reputation as an enterprise and developer-focused cloud computing provider, today said its cloud platform is open for anyone to signup for, and can be used with a new by-the-minute billing scheme.

• Dell 'refining' plans for OpenStack-powered public cloud

  Fresh off the acquisition of a company that specializes in helping customers manage resources across multiple public clouds, Dell said it is "refining" its own plans to build a public cloud based on OpenStack.

• Big Data is a big but young market

  A recent survey by Forrester found that 7 per cent of IT executives and 9 per cent of business leaders feel they have gained a true return on investment from Big Data. That means there's a lot more business can be doing to glean insights from the massive amount of data that's potentially available to them.

• Google I/O: The buzz from this Google-extravaganza is decidedly quieter

  Google I/O week is here, and Android-watchers in particular as well as Google fans in general are buzzing over what the Goog is planning to wow us all with in San Francisco. A slick new phone? A brand-spanking new version of Android? Another one of whatever the heck this was?

• Dell buys Enstratius to beef up multi-cloud management chops

  Dell has purchased Enstratius, a company that allows customers to manage cloud resources across multiple providers from a single management console for an undisclosed sum this week.

• iPad 5 rumour rollup for the week ending May 8

  The iOSphere seems to have lowered itself from mere rumor to mere guesses for iPad 5 and the iPad mini 2, though with just as much assurance.

• Interop network squares off against controlled 70G bit/sec DDoS attack

  The network at one of the biggest annual networking shows is being subject to a series of distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) creating the equivalent of 90 million sessions attempting to use the network at the same time, all as part of a controlled test of the Interop network.

• Getting the most out of flash storage

  As powerful and beneficial as flash storage can be, many organizations are overspending on capacity they don't need, deploying flash in the wrong places, and inefficiently spending on flash applications that are not appropriate for their real business objectives.

• Understanding hypervisor-based disaster recovery

  A common misconception in IT is that virtualization and enterprise-class disaster recovery just don't mix. Either you get the flexibility of the virtual data center or the robust capabilities and short recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) that come with great DR, but never both at the same time.

• After Arista and before Cisco/Insieme, Huawei hikes 100G bar again

  Huawei this week unveiled a high-end upgrade to its CloudEngine core switch, which debuted here at Interop a year ago.