Join storage-focused IT leaders at Australia’s premier data storage conference, to be held in Melbourne on 12 May. Learn the latest tips and tricks from local and international experts. Subjects covered include: cloud storage, next-gen backup, dedupe, data reduction and more. [ + ]

A day in the life of a virtual data recovery expert outlines the recovery of data when three days of client data is lost.

You probably cannot help but buy more storage, writes Simon Sharwood, but why not make sure you use every byte of the storage you’ve already got before you sign another cheque? Well that makes sense. Keep reading to find out the latest optimisation techniques.

Orcun Tezel tells Voice&Data why there has never been a better time for corporations to get maximum value from their network vendor.

Curtin University of Technology’s students and colleagues benefit from its CIO Peter Nikoletatos’s fascination with technology and its potential. These lucky people get to use and experience the most innovative technology. Merri Mack speaks to Nikoletatos about what drives him.

Small to medium businesses (SMBs) are coming to realise - many with painful consequences - the crucial need to focus their information security strategies on being able to recover data as part of their backup process. StorageCraft’s Greg Wyman explains why SMBs must change their focus.

Unbatten the hatches and virtualise for operational excellence says Peter Croft as he identifies how to get a green IT strategy back on the agenda for operational efficiency.

Unified Communications has been the subject of much discussion in recent years with vendors, analysts and the media all putting forward views and predictions. Yet, for many, the profusion of information has simply been confusing and it appears that for now, only those organisations with distributed, remote and mobile workforces seem to be reaping its clear advantages, reports Pushkar Taneja, managing director of GlobalConnect.

Telstra Business, which has been headed up by Deena Shiff since 2006, has the distinction of touching more small businesses other than the Australian Tax Office so she understands their needs and her focus is on making sure they get it.

As the new managing director at Cisco Australia and New Zealand, but an old hand at Cisco, it is Les Williamson’s responsibility to help the local arm of the company capture new and emerging market transitions. In that role, he says he is extremely excited to be leading a business at a time of great change, wrought chiefly by the current wave of internet technologies and the incredible productivity benefits they provide.

Instead of succumbing to all the gloom and doom emanating from the global financial crisis, which by some rather alarmist reports will see 100,000 Australian small and medium businesses (SMBs) go down the gurgler, why not look for the opportunities, suggests D-Link’s Maurice Famularo.

The truth is that VoIP technology is really as simple as putting another IP-based application - voice and voice-related services in this case - onto the network. And it does provide cost savings as it enables a method of doing away with the legacy voice network by digitising voice into data so that it can ride on the existing data network. Grant Howe, country manager, ANZ for 3Com, poses the question: so what’s not to love about VoIP? He explains that VoIP’s cost and complexity is really in the licensing.

Global electricity prices have jumped more than 50% in the past five years, right along with a dramatic upswing in data centre energy consumption. Whether the motivation is reducing costs, minimising carbon footprint, or both, many Australian organisations are committed to finding solutions that help improve data centre efficiency. Emerson Network Power’s David Scott uncovers one solution guaranteed to lower your high-density energy bills.

The topic of sustainability or green IT remains a key focus for everyone in the industry this year. On the bright side, doing business is more accessible than ever before. Advances in technology have reduced transaction costs, created broader access to global markets and advanced technologies, and levelled the playing field among small businesses, large corporations, emerging economies and industrialised nations. IBM’s Mark Latchford tracks the positive changes in sustainable IT.

2008 has been a roller-coaster ride of uncertainty. Every day we seem to hear new reports of organisations facing unexpected pressures and challenges. ProCurve’s Gurkirat Singh reports on the current state of play and provides common sense advice on what to do.