They are the best of tools and the worst of tools. Mobile computing devices can support the workforce out in the field or make your most sensitive company secrets public knowledge. The only way to simultaneously unleash your workforce and rein in company threats is to control the risks. Many
Grid computing would seem to be a simple concept: computers are linked together and the machines share resources such as CPU cycles, RAM and data storage capabilities. Free resources on one machine can be tapped by other users on the grid; in return, a machine in need of additional computing
Something scary is happening in the world of computing. Even though everything is getting smaller and more powerful, we’re faced with increasing demand for power to run systems, keep them cool and house them. Although disk drive capacity requirements double every year, if companies require more drives, the issues become
It’s virtually a no-brainer. Your data is backed up the instant you make a change to it — any change, no matter how small. You can retrieve it immediately. That’s right; no need to hassle with locating and accessing the right backup tape. And the expense is easily justified by
Virtualization is the topic du jour among IT professionals. As CIOs continue to search for more efficient – and cost-effective – ways to manage the data center, the promise of being able to do more with fewer resources is spurring a large proportion of enterprises to test the virtualization waters.
Ramiro Perez doesn’t like to wait around. As purchasing manager for Copart Inc., a $500 million automotive services firm based in Fairfield, Calif. helping insurance companies process and sell “total loss” vehicles, his job is all about efficiency — and that’s as much about making sure his organization doesn’t waste
In the perennial push for greater speed and more robust functionality, multicore servers have been promoted as the solution for the future. But despite their obvious benefits in cost-effective and faster parallel processing, there are significant trade-offs. Chief among these are pushback from application developers, skill transfer, memory limitations, provisioning
After being sidelined for years by low-cost PCs and servers, the virtues of virtualization are re-emerging. Its adoption is accelerating among companies of all sizes. “The world will be virtualized in several years,” says Sal Capizzi, senior analyst at the Boston, Mass. based Yankee Group. “In five years, they’ll be
Rapid change in technology is nothing new. But some things remain a constant: CIOs will always be under pressure to prove IT spending improves business growth and, at the same time, find ways to deliver more with less. These days, that means figuring out which parts of IT to keep
One of the hottest prospects to address the high administrative, support and infrastructure costs of the data center is server consolidation. “In the long term, server consolidation is something you absolutely must do,” says Tim Pacileo, executive consultant at Compass American Inc., a metrics-based IT consulting firm based in New
