Articles
UC with a chance of cloud: the emergence of cloud-based unified communications
Unified communications offers a tantalising mix of productivity benefits, but the cost of a full-blown enterprise-grade deployment is prohibitive to many organisations. However, with the emergence of cloud-based unified communications services, these benefits are becoming available to more and more Australian businesses, as Stephen Withers found out.
[ + ]Expect chaos and catastrophes in security landscape
IT departments are being urged to make use of new technologies like social media, mobility, virtualisation and the cloud. Each of these carries new security risks and IT departments must learn new tactics to successfully secure them, as Merri Mack explains.
[ + ]Data centre power planning
Demand for data centres continues unabated, driven by factors like cloud computing and increasing use of multiapplication phones. These data centres must be efficient if they are to be successful. Jim Smith, CTO of Digital Realty Trust, discusses how power-usage planning can help build better data centres.
[ + ]With great cloud comes great responsibility
Cloud computing is often treated as something of a black box: you put data into it, some magic goes on, and processed data comes out. But even though someone else is taking care of the heavy lifting, securing your data as it goes into the cloud is still your responsibility. So says Vince Lee, Regional Manager, Australia & New Zealand, SafeNet.
[ + ]Steve Jobs dead
Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of consumer technology giant Apple, has died. [ + ]
The rise and pitfalls of data centre virtualisation
Data centre operators continue to be hounded by perennial problems like rising energy costs and increasing compute demands. Many are seeking to virtualise the entire data centre in order to get a leg-up. But this pursuit carries many dangers, as Merri Mack found out.
[ + ]The 'prehistoric' top cop and his contact centre evolution
Once a ‘digital dinosaur’, whose most complex piece of technology was a typewriter, Greg Flint has evolved into a digital immigrant. As Acting Superintendent, Manager Policelink Branch for the Queensland Police Service (QPS), Flint has successfully led the state’s Policelink project. Flint explains to Merri Mack how he went from operational policing to heading up a major information technology project.
[ + ]Telstra 4G LTE roundup and analysis
Telstra launched its new 4G LTE mobile network earlier this week. Andrew Collins discusses the impact of the network, the phones that may or may not run on it and pricing.
[ + ]Small business latches onto cloud computing
Cloud computing is offering small business the applications and IT concepts that were previously exclusive to large enterprises, like disaster recovery and data resiliency. Merri Mack reports on this flattening of IT.
[ + ]Coping with consumer demand for mobile video
Mobile operators are under increasing pressure to deliver higher volumes of mobile data, as consumer appetite for mobile video and internet grows. Christian Goswami discusses strategies to help mobile operators cope with this demand for mobile video and data, including caching and offline transcoding.
[ + ]The telco cloud invasion
Australian telcos have begun ramping up their cloud service offerings in earnest, as part of a larger war effort to sequester a piece of the cloud services pie for themselves. So what does this mean for IT departments looking at adopting cloud solutions? Andrew Collins finds out.
[ + ]Love or money?
With IT underpinning so many parts of a business, a CIO carries many responsibilities. Yet the importance of the role is often unrecognised by the board, and the business itself. So what gets a CIO out of bed in the morning? Merri Mack talks to Diane Fernley-Jones, CIO at Leighton Contractors, about the rewards of being a CIO.
[ + ]Adopting the cloud without compromising security
The cloud promises many advantages - dynamic allocation of resources, CAPEX-based pricing and so on. But so far, there are no widely accepted standards for security in a cloud environment, leading some organisations to be wary of the technology. Patrick Eijkenboom, Principal Consultant at NetIQ, discusses best practices for security when adopting cloud computing.
[ + ]Cloud computing drives data centre expansion
Equinix, a carrier-neutral data centre company, has opened its new Sydney data centre. Merri Mack reports on the launch and the continuing demand for local data centres given the growth of cloud computing. [ + ]
Thinkpiece: Do we really need ‘the cloud’?
Nowadays, ‘the cloud’ is a term that’s widely misused. It’s a broad, abstract concept that is frequently applied to many technologies, as though they were the same thing, despite each being radically different from the other. This leads to great confusion and frustration among users, who are growing increasingly cynical of the real value of cloud computing. This begs the question: do we really need the concept of ‘the cloud’?
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