Thursday | 16 October, 2008
CIO
From Marginalized to Virtualized
Weighed down by data, IT isn’t moving at business-speed and is being treated like the fat boy no one wants on the basketball squad. Virtualization can get you back on the team.
Steve Duplessie 22 April, 2008 02:23:04
Page:

Related Topics
(Green CIO: Data Centre)
Related Features
  • +

    How to Manage Project Risks, Part 8: Business Risks 04 December, 2007 10:29:23

    Analysis of the business risks ensures the project team considers issues the business staff are aware of.
    Analysis of the business risks ensures the project team considers issues the business staff are aware of.
  • +

    Forget Everything You've Learnt About Project Delivery! 29 January, 2008 11:25:16

    Our current project delivery paradigms are flawed. And so are our approaches to solving this problem. The first in a new 10-part series from project management expert Jed Simms
    Our current project delivery paradigms are flawed — and so are our approaches to solving this problem. The first in a new 10-part series from project management expert Jed Simms
Related Stories
  • +

    Adobe launches hosted services, adds Flash to Acrobat 03 June, 2008 09:02:44

    Adobe to launch Web site offering users free hosted services for document creation, sharing and storage
    Adobe this week is set to unveil the next version of its Adobe Acrobat software, which adds support for the company's Flash multimedia technology. The company also plans to launch a new Web site offering users free hosted services for document creation, sharing and storage.
  • +

    Experimental container support for 2.6.24 08 November, 2007 12:00:24

    Faster than virtualization, but harder to implement, containers are a promising security technology for Linux. Watch the 2.6.24 kernel for experimental support for creating and managing containers.
    "Containers" are a form of lightweight virtualization as represented by projects like OpenVZ. While virtualization creates a new virtual machine upon which the guest system runs, containers implementations work by making walls around groups of processes. The result is that, while virtualized guests each run their own kernel (and can run different operating systems than the host), containerized systems all run on the host's kernel. So containers lack some of the flexibility of full virtualization, but they tend to be quite a bit more efficient.
  • +

    Virtualization and availability 16 November, 2007 10:05:35

    Virtualization is one of the hottest topics in the IT industry for good reason.
    Virtualization is one of the hottest topics in the IT industry, and for good reason. Server virtualization brings many benefits: hardware consolidation, better resource utilization, lower capital and operating expenses, and greater flexibility to meet changing business needs.
  • +

    Kernel space: a better btrfs 24 January, 2008 11:00:45

    A powerful new filesystem for Linux already supports fast snapshots, checksums for all data, and online resizing--and plans to add ZFS-style built-in striping and mirroring.
    Chris Mason has recently released Btrfs v0.10, which contains a number of interesting new features. In general, Btrfs has come a long way since LWN first wrote about it last June. Btrfs may, in some years, be the filesystem most of us are using - at least, for those of us who will still be using rotating storage then. So it bears watching.
  • +

    Want to manage your wired/wireless LANS together? Too bad 15 November, 2007 08:15:15

    Management tools for multivendor mixed LANS are scarce
    For the past few years, organizations have gone full-force in deploying a combination of wired and wireless enterprise networks. But now, as wireless technology matures, they are left asking: Where are the tools to unify management of these disparate networks?
Additional Resources
Executive Guides
Whitepapers
white paper Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services.

Newsletter Subscription

Sign up for our CIO newsletters!
Weekly coverage of the issues that impact corporate and government information
RSS Feeds

According to ESG Research's November 2007 study: E-Discovery Requirements Escalate, in the archive/e-discovery/litigation support market only 7 per cent of the time does IT make the decision to use funds to build out infrastructure, tools, applications and processes to support e-discovery mandates, whereas 37 per cent of the time the legal department makes those decisions -- with no involvement upfront from IT at all. Examples such as this are becoming more common as unknown business unit requirements continue to appear -- causing an increased rift between an already tenuous relationship involving the core business and internal IT.

The results aren't good. They are bad for business, but to facilitate change, we must acknowledge and understand the realities within the cycle.

  • 1. The business unit has a requirement.

  • 2. The business makes a decision on e-discovery tools and policies.

  • 3. IT is handed a mandate from the business to implement and support the decision.

  • 4. Even if the implementation is flawless, a new stovepipe has been created.

  • a. That application only looks for data that it ingests, requiring decisions to be made as to what that data is and how to get it into the system.

  • b. Applications such as this may crawl existing data sources to ingest, but must be directed as to the specific data types.

  • c. Applications such as this normally only support one or two different data types -- e-mail, for example -- but not database/transaction records, or unstructured data living outside the core data center.

  • 5. A discovery request from the new application 'archive' is only successful if the request contains all of the relevant data, which rarely (if ever) exists entirely within that archive.

  • 6. IT tends to attempt to evolve the new application stack into existing processes for backup/recovery, disaster recovery and so on, stressing existing systems and processes. It is easier for already taxed IT personnel to add to existing operating processes versus creating new ones, regardless of the applicability.

    The reality of this is that IT is already operating above capacity. The business unit views IT's inflexibility and time to service delays as unacceptable, and as such begins to make decisions independently of IT. The businesses may gain accelerated time to deployment of the new application, but has little knowledge of the fact that they may be causing more damage than good overall.

    I worry about the inevitable long-term effects of this cycle, but recognize that most will not have the time or luxury to concern themselves with such things. In the short term, IT is being further removed from the decision-making process for business unit information access decisions. The result is that IT ends up having to support the goals of the business unit, but it has no control or a limited amount of control over the decision processes and the effects of those decisions on IT's overall ability to deliver services.

    Page:
    More about VIA, Speed, Evolve, ACT, Oracle, ProVision, Logical, EMC, Provision, NICE
    • Market Place
    Computerworld SOA Summit: Improve your margins and eliminate inefficiencies. Register now | 17th October 2008
    CRM Webcast: Learn how to find a CRM solution that fits into your existing business environment. Tune in now.
    Cut Printer costs! Printing costs can be up to 3% of turnover, cut them by up to 50%.
    Webcast: How to get the best out of your network featuring expert analysts, to view now click here
    Uncover the security challenges faced when defining and implementing security mechanisms within wired and wireless network environments.
    New white paper | Improving Sales Productivity: An Opportunity for Sales and IT Leadership | Download now
    Reduce TCO for SAP with Linux. Get the white paper that proves your Linux is SAP ready.
    21 October 2008 Live webinar: Learn how to orchestrate activities between a request management process and HP/Mercury/Quality Centre
     

    Smart SOA World Tour

    Discover how SOA can create smarter outcomes for your business.

    Attend and learn:

    • How SOA is helping leading companies to become more agile
    • Where you should be applying SOA processes in your company
    • The top SOA implementation mistakes to avoid

    Click here for more information.
    • +

      CIO Live Podcast #79: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires Part II 05 October, 2007 06:00:00

      For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders.
      [ MP3 (7.32 MB) | Windows Media (5.67 MB) ]
    • +

      CIO Live Podcast #78: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires 28 September, 2007 17:34:25

      For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders.
      [ MP3 (7.56 MB) | Windows Media (5.14 MB) ]
    • +

      CIO Live Podcast #77: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part III 21 September, 2007 07:00:00

      Part three in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance.
      [ MP3 (4.90 MB) | Windows Media (4.40 MB) ]
    • +

      CIO Live Podcast #76: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part II 14 September, 2007 07:00:00

      Part two in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance.
      [ MP3 (5.89 MB) | Windows Media (4.84 MB) ]
    • +

      CIO Live Podcast #75: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part I 07 September, 2007 07:00:05

      Part one in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance.
      [ MP3 (6.41 MB) | Windows Media (5.13 MB) ]
    • +

      Inside Symantec's Security Operations Center 16 October, 2008 07:38:00

      For Symantec clients, the Symantec Security Operations Center is the front line in the fight against network attacks. CSO toured the facility for an overview of how the services work, and for a look at some of the latest threats on the internet today
      The inside of the Symantec Security Operations Center looks like a scene out of the movie "War Games," and in many ways, the connection is fitting. The SOC, as it is known by Symantec employees, is in the business of detecting and analyzing network threats. And as malicious activity online gets increasingly more sophisticated, the war against cybercrime is definitely on.
    • +

      Cyber security threats grow in sophistication, subtlety 16 October, 2008 08:26:00

      Researchers say malware, botnets, cyber warfare, threats to VoIP and mobile devices, and the "evolving cyber crime economy" are ever-more sophisticated threats
      The annual report from Georgia Tech Information Security Center identifies five evolving cyber security threats, and the news is not good.
    • +

      Tough economic climate can heighten insider threat 16 October, 2008 07:09:00

      As companies downsize, they need to keep an eye out for disgruntled employees
      With a faltering economy resulting in increased jobs cuts and corporate belt tightening, security analysts are warning companies to be especially vigilant about protecting their data and networks against disgruntled employees.
    • +

      Anonymous proxy servers: Necessary or evil? 15 October, 2008 07:13:00

      Some security experts believe anonymous proxy servers are only necessary if you're up to no good, while others see them as a legitimate tool for research, pen testing and the like. Who's right?
      If there is truly a gray zone in the struggle between online good and evil, anonymous proxy servers live there.
    • +

      Four security lessons from the World Bank breach 15 October, 2008 07:39:00

      The World Bank is making headlines after a disputed report claims hackers managed to access their secure network for over a year. One security pro offers takeaways that everyone can learn from the breach
      According to a report from Fox News, several servers at the World Bank Group, an organization that offers economic assistance to developing countries around the globe, were repeatedly compromised and breached over the course of the last year.
    CIO Webcast Innovation #8 - What are the biggest roadblocks to IT's involvement in innovation at your company?
    Watch the latest latest edition of CIO Innovation which is now available for download.
    Watch the webcast
    Sign up to the CIO Innovation update email


    CIO Live Podcast #79: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires Part II
    Listen to the latest edition of CIO Live which is now available for download.
    Listen to the podcast
    Sign up to the CIO Live email
    Get a job Careerone
    Whitepaper
    Using EMC Celerra IP Storage with Vmware Infrastructure 3 over iSCSI and NFS

    Read Whitepaper

    Using EMC Celerra IP Storage with Vmware Infrastructure 3 over iSCSI and NFS

    Learn to tie virtualized computing to virtualized storage, to offer a dynamic set of capabilities within the data centre and create improved performance and system reliability. Discover how best to utilize EMC Celerra in a VMware ESX environment.