Whitepapers Weekly

Dell: Tablets in Schools: Dell Latitude 10 Essentials Configuration with Windows 8 vs. Apple IPad

admin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:34:38 +0000

School systems purchasing tablets for use by students and staff have a wide variety of options available. Choosing a model that is easy and quick to deploy, set up, and update can dramatically reduce the amount of time that the IT department must spend on management, which translates to a much lower cost of ownership over the lifecycle of the device.

Dell: Desktop Virtualization – The Right Strategic Solution for Management, IT and End Users

admin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:18:28 +0000

Desktop Virtualization has become a mainstream solution for many organizations and tech analysts continue to forecast its growth as a way to address the dynamic needs of corporate IT environments. Forrester Research has found that more than half of the organizations they survey see desktop virtualization as a critical or high priority over the next 12-18 months. While the deployment has not been quite as rapid as server virtualization, it is progressing quickly. Now that there are substantial numbers of implementations and more experience in the realities of Desktop Virtualization, it has become clear that it is at the same level of strategic importance as server virtualization and consolidation.

Dell: What you need to know about Windows® 8

admin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:46:49 +0000

Dell and Microsoft work together to simplify your IT. Windows 8 is ready to give your business the tools you need to meet your workers’ changing IT needs in a way that’s reliable, productive and secure.

Dell: Windows 8 and BYOD, embrace the trend

admin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:28:22 +0000

Windows 8 for the desktop and mobile form factor (that’s tablet in geek-speak) will be cross-platform. That means a unified end-user experience will be provided from the Windows 8 mobile phone, to tablet, to desktop. All of this is a good thing for those interested in BYOD, as users often move back and forth between their personal mobile device and business desktop during the day. IT departments will also have an easier time managing Windows 8 BYOD devices because of their IT-friendly features.

TIER 3 – Microsoft Exchange Server 2010© in the Cloud

admin — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:20:45 +0000

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010© offers a number of exciting new features, including breakthroughs to be an effective cloud-based email solution. Making the upgrade to Exchange Server 2010 in the cloud, however, is not a push-button process.
Through real world examples and learning experiences, this paper will serve as your guide to decide which Exchange upgrade path is right for you, how to best approach each step of the upgrade process and what questions to ask to get the most out of your Exchange investment. This paper will guide you through real world experiences and the industry’s most effective proven practices for success with Exchange in the cloud.

FIXMO – Enabling Your Business through Mobile Risk Management

admin — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:12:39 +0000

In recent months, the consumerization of IT (CoIT), the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend, and the seismic shifts happening in enterprise IT due to the rise of social technologies, mobile devices, apps, cloud computing and other disruptive forces have taken center stage with CIO’s, industry thought leaders and analysts alike.

WEBROOT – Putting Web Threat Protection and Content Filtering in the Cloud

admin — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:50:58 +0000

The Cloud Can Lower Costs — Can It Improve Security Too? Should IT managers deploy secure web gateways as software or appliances on-premises? Or should they utilize a cloud-based service?

Enfocus Solutions Inc. – How Effective Business Analysis Achieves Business Outcomes

admin — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:09:12 +0000

Business analysis is more than just the activity of requirements definition. Unfortunately, most organizations still follow a process in which business analysis occurs only during that one phase of the project.

Enfocus Solutions Inc. – How Business Analysis Can Improve Sales and Marketing Outcomes

admin — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:01:30 +0000

In today’s environment, the strategic focus for most organizations is revenue growth. Almost all executives are searching for ways to drive additional revenue growth, yet research shows that over 75% of CEO’s are dissatisfied with their organization’s progress in achieving revenue goals. So what’s blocking their strategic goals for increasing business? The answer could be a variety of things such as friction between the sales and marketing departments, poorexecution of sales and marketing processes, weak demand or lead generation capabilities,lack of key information to make informed decisions, and integrated sales and marketingmetrics to measure performance. Finding a solution for one of these problems can be
daunting; however, help may be available in an unforeseen place. That place is applying business analysis methods and techniques to find a solution for the problem.

INTRALINKS: Securing Cloud Computing For Enterprise Collaboration

admin — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:42:01 +0000

As the business case for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and other cloud computing models solidifies, more and more companies are incorporating cloud computing into their IT programs. The implication is that an ever- increasing amount of critical information is living “in the cloud.”Delegating services to a service provider,

IDC: Secure, Compliant Collaboration in the Cloud.

admin — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:31:14 +0000

With specialization and globalization increasing across all industries, value chains are more distributed and more complex. Monolithic corporations are being replaced by enterprises with dynamic “value networks” — external partnerships that support specific business processes. Such specialization requires increasing inter-enterprise collaboration as well as information flow. To support such networks, organizations need tools to encourage and facilitate collaboration among all
participants.

INTRALINKS® – Sharing Sensitive Corporate Documents without Compromising Security and Governance

admin — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:17:16 +0000

As confidence slowly returns to the global economy, mergers and acquisitions, new product launches and initial public offerings (IPOs) are just beginning to rebound. This is no return to business practices as they were a decade ago; it is clear that companies are operating in a continuously changing landscape that requires new levels of agility and adaption in order to remain competitive.

Technology Evaluation Centers: Three Keys to Better Data-driven Decisions: What You Should Know Right Now

admin — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 17:07:27 +0000

Every day, executives at small and midsize companies make critical business decisions based on uncoordinated information from a variety of sources: opinions from peers and colleagues; a personal sense of intuition or business judgment; or data derived internally or externally to the organization.

SAP: Managing “Big Data”- a Key to BI Success

admin — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:55:17 +0000

Organizations of every size are recording more data than ever, but still letting Terabytes, Petabytes, Exabytes fly by unanalyzed. Managing these gigantic flows, probing massive repositories and speedily extracting actionable business intelligence is a major opportunity for enterprises. Imagine the business value of capturing and understanding the behavior of global markets, for example. Or insights from millions of current and potential customers on massive social networks. Or entire fields of knowledge on databases and web documents packed with textual, multimedia and other uncoded data. A key to unlocking the value of this “Big Data” is real-time management that enables faster, better informed, mobile decisions.

SAP: The Unwired Enterprise: A Comprehensive Approach to Mobilizing for Success

admin — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:23:35 +0000

The benefits of a mobile workplace are clear: faster business processes, closer connections with customers, and more rapid decisions. But getting there is not easy. There are few examples and best practices to follow; even fewer benchmarks exist. To maximize the benefits of going mobile while managing cost and limiting risk, you need a sound, effective, and systematic approach that includes a clear mobile strategy, identified use scenarios, and a complete service offering and system landscape.

NetApp: NetApp and VMware View Solution Guide

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 20:20:51 +0000

The NetApp solution enables companies to optimize their virtual infrastructures by providing advanced storage and data management capabilities. NetApp provides industry -leading storage solutions that simplify virtual machine (VM) provisioning; enable mass VM cloning and redeployment; handle typical input/output (I/O) bursts such as boot storm, antivirus storms, efficient operating system (OS), application, and user data management, and so on; provide individual VM backup and restores; deliver simple and flexible business continuance; and help reduce virtual desktop storage.

Gartner: Load Balancers Are Officially Dead; Refocus on Application Delivery

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 20:14:40 +0000

Cisco’s move limiting Application Control Engine development shows that the time for stand-alone load balancers has passed. IT leaders should focus on leveraging more advanced application delivery controller features to improve application deployments.

RES Software: Five Steps to Meaningful Use with Workspace Virtualization

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 20:07:47 +0000

IT departments today are finding themselves squarely at the epicenter of healthcare compliance scrutiny. One of the many regulations to which they must adhere is “meaningful use,” which ties financial incentives to usage of electronic health records as part of the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program. Now, with meaningful use deadlines fast approaching and concerns about compliance reaching the highest levels of healthcare organizations, IT professionals are finally being invited to step out of the basement and into the boardroom.

First Data: Boost Your Direct Marketing Success with Prepaid Incentive Cards

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:52:36 +0000

Today, traditional direct mail campaigns often deliver anemic response rates of less than 1 percent, and direct mail campaigns sweetened with discounts don’t fare much better. Add a coupon to the message, and the response rate typically only rises to 1 percent. Meanwhile, mailing and printing costs continue to escalate. Businesses must clearly find more effective ways to get consumers’ attention

Forrester: Building a Pervasive Corporate Mobile Competency

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:46:44 +0000

Mobile strategy has evolved since 2010. Then, a mobile strategy equated to a mobile services road map and technology platform choices. An individual or small team could both create a strategy and manage the delivery of mobile services. As mobile usage by both consumers and organizations grew — across geographies, functional groups, and brands — and the portable device landscape fragmented, small, isolated teams could no longer support a company’s mobile services. In 2013, mobile strategy means having the right organization, governance, and staffing, along with the associated business processes, to guide the development of both mobile ideas and actual services across this complex landscape. Forrester interviewed 25 eBusiness professionals from mostly best-in-class companies with regard to mobile services to identify best practices in scaling your mobile competency. This report is the organization chapter of the mobile eBusiness playbook.

Crimson Hexagon: Nine Essentials of Online Opinion Monitoring

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:40:09 +0000

In days gone by, marketing was a polished monologue. You orchestrated the release of your brand value proposition to the world and hoped for the best. You were able to measure the relative success of your efforts only later in the cycle —through survey results, focus groups, a spike in market share for you —or a competitor.

Citrix: Consolidation Without Compromise

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:01:45 +0000

Virtualization of compute, storage and infrastructure is enabling the transformation of enterprise datacenters into private clouds. The impact is an unprecedented ability to consolidate infrastructure without compromise: no change to service level agreements (SLAs), no loss of performance or scale, and no regression in the organization’s overall security posture. Such wholesale consolidation drives meaningful reduction in operating and capital costs, and allows datacenter managers to demonstrate a dramatic ROI for a myriad of virtualization technologies within the datacenter.

Genesys: 5 Ways to Turn Customer Service Into a Strategic Advantage

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:57:16 +0000

The words “customer service” mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Many — perhaps most — see it as a softer way of referring to those people tasked with solving the problems customers take time to complain about. Yet, companies that see it this way are missing a golden opportunity. The edge in today’s marketplace belongs to firms that can turn the tables, converting customer service from a cost to an asset, and creating a strategic advantage over the competition.

VM Turbo: Sizing-Up IT Operations Management- Three Key Points of Comparison

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:44:37 +0000

Enterprise and midsize businesses are increasingly turning to blade servers as the platform of choice to deliver the next generation of virtualized applications. Blade servers can yield significant cost efficiencies over rack servers — while taking up a smaller footprint, consuming less power and providing significant advantages in terms of manageability, scalability and flexibility.

Salesforce: Top 10 Features Small and Medium Businesses Should Seek in a CRM Solution

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:30:52 +0000

Once thought of as only relevant for enterprises, CRM technology is increasingly being used by small and medium businesses across industries. Even the smallest organizations recognize the value of using a CRM solution to manage interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects.

SAP:Opening New Doors- SAP Innovation Presents New Opportunities

admin — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:47:41 +0000

A revolution is underway. It is a consumer revolution that is reshaping the entire landscape, and it is being led by billions of individuals and business consumers everywhere, including both the world’s established and just-emerging purchasing and earning classes. Right now: More people own mobile phones than toothbrushes, if you are 18 to 24, you are far more likely to have a smartphone than a job, there are already 3 billion social media profiles online, soon to surpass the number of email accounts, and in the US alone, companies store enough data each year to fill 10,000 Libraries of Congress.

Blue Coat: Security Empowers Business

admin — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:38:21 +0000

For decades, fear has dominated the discussion of cyber security. Every magazine article, presentation or blog about the topic seems to start the same way: trying to scare the living daylights out of you with horror stories, alarming statistics, and doomsday scenarios.

HP: Evaluating Blade Servers for Your IT Infrastructure

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:19:48 +0000

When rack-mounted servers first appeared on the scene in the 1990s, they offered considerable advantages over the behemoth boxes they replaced. Their small, standardized footprint went a long way toward making data centers easier to manage. In the ensuing decades, form factor size and compute power have had an inverse relationship.

HP: Too Many Racks?

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:16:16 +0000

Every data center IT manager must constantly deal with certain practical constraints such as time, complexity, reliability, maintainability, space, compatibility, and money. The challenge is that business application demands on computing technology often don’t cooperate with these constraints.

HP: Top 10 Reasons to Consider Blades for the Next Wave of Virtualization

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:12:58 +0000

UBM Tech: Virtualizing Your Infrastructure with a Path to the Cloud

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:07:28 +0000

Moving to an Efficient IT Infrastructure The demands on IT organizations just keep growing. In today’s competitive climate, enterprises expect IT to support innovation, enhance agility, roll out new services quickly and deliver the resources to meet peak levels of demand.

HP: Cloud Computing- A CFO’s Perspective

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:02:48 +0000

There is no question that Information Technology (IT) and business are inextricably linked. Ever since the internet revolutionized the business world in the 90’s, companies around the world have turned to technology to increase business efficiency while boosting their competitive edge. The link between business and IT has created unprecedented growth and opportunity across all industries, making IT a key discussion topic in the boardroom of most companies. Not surprisingly, Information Technology is now at the top of the CFOs agenda—according to Gartner, 26 percent of IT investments require the direct authorization of the CFO and 42 percent of IT organizations now report to the CFO.

SAP: Building Custom Mobile Solutions for Enterprises – Lessons Learned and Best Practices

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:56:54 +0000

In some ways, building mobile solutions for enterprises is similar to developing consumer mobile apps. The goals of the end-user are paramount, as are usability and performance. In other ways, however, the two are very different – in particular, the following distinguish enterprise mobile solutions: Must satisfy users who are even more demanding, since their success (and that of theircustomers) depends on the solution, Often used in the field, in work places and under conditions that are quite challenging, Usually connect to multiple corporate back-end applications, which is no small task, Must scale to accommodate user demand without compromising critical back-end systems, Can significantly improve processes, customers’ experience and business results, Require “enterprise-grade” security to protect against sophisticated attacks aimed at breaching enterprise systems and data.

Forrester: Key Drivers: Why CIOs Believe Empowered Users Set The Agenda for Enterprise Security

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:50:54 +0000

Several years ago, a transformation in IT began to take place; a transformation from an IT-centric view of technology to a business-centric view of technology that Forrester refers to as business technology (BT). There are three major drivers fueling this transformation: 1)technologies that are increasingly easy to both acquire and use that empower business self-sufficiency; 2) tech-savvy business managers and staff that provision their own technology and solutions; and 3) huge changes in the competitive landscape that have upped the ante for speed and agility.

Gartner: MarketScope for Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:46:09 +0000

In this research, we analyze the emerging market for enterprise file synchronization and sharing products, and cloud-based services. These enable better productivity and collaboration for mobile workers, granting IT control with security and compliance capabilities.

nScaled: The 5 Things That Can Go Wrong With DIY Disaster Recovery

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:41:35 +0000

Everyone knows that it’s important to have a disaster recovery plan, but the perfect solution is not always in the budget. Many organizations have attempted to provide for their own disaster recovery and business continuity needs by purchasing additional hardware and installing it in a branch office or colocation facility.

Campaigner: Driving ROI Through Email Relevance: Key Tactics

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:35:46 +0000

The true promise of email marketing has always been increasing your marketing ROI. Today that promise is achievable only through relevance – sending the right person, the right email message, at just the right time. A recent study on the ROI of Email Relevance by JupiterResearch found that engaging your audience in more relevant communications can increase net profits on average 18 times more than broadcast mailings. Additionally, relevant email generates 16 times more improvement in net profit. It’s no surprise that industry experts agree – the more relevance infused into a marketer’s communications the stronger the ROI.

Intel: Improving Facility Operations with Intel Architecture-based Tablets

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:22:41 +0000

Intel IT conducted a proof of concept (PoC) that demonstrates the potential productivity and efficiency gains associated with providing facility technicians with Intel® architecture-based tablets. This PoC is one part of our multi-year effort to adopt lean manufacturing processes—maintaining support costs even as our facilities continue to grow.

Intel: Evaluating Ultrabook Devices for the Enterprise

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:17:35 +0000

Intel IT is proactively gathering data about Ultrabook™ devices and how they fit into the enterprise, in anticipation of a wave of new devices and form factors, and the associated expectations from employees who want to buy and use these devices at work.

Intel: Consumerization of IT- Find the Right Device for the Job

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:57:13 +0000

Consumerization is driving increased technology choice, and users are in the driver’s seat. IT organizations must find a way to provide the mobility and flexibility that users want with the security that business requires. As a strategic partner in the business, you can offer innovative technology choices to your employees based on the roles they have in your organization. These choices can deliver an improved user-centric experience and help maintain the technology standards needed for cost-efficiency.

UBM: The State of Cloud Computing in Government

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:48:48 +0000

Like many private sector organizations, a lot of government entities are making big moves to cloud computing, or at least planning to deploy cloud initiatives soon. Federal, state and local agencies are discovering that cloud services such as software as a service (SaaS) or infrastructure as a service (IaaS) can offer a number of benefits, and they are launching cloud-related projects aimed at lowering costs, boosting efficiencies and increasing agility and scalability.

HP: Meeting All Your Data Deduplication Challenges

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:39:58 +0000

The deduplication is one of the fastest growing segments in storage. Accordingly, every vendor is telling their version of the deduplication story. With emerging technologies, it is difficult for IT managers to determine what the true IT benefits vs. marketing spin are. This brief document discusses several key areas of deduplication and uncovers six NetApp “challenges” customers should understand when evaluating HP StoreOnce Backup Systems and NetApp as their deduplication solution of choice.

Enterprise Strategy Group: Lab Validation Report- HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:34:50 +0000

This report documents the results of ESG Lab’s hands-on testing and validation of the HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 storage array, with a focus on autonomic simplicity, efficient unified storage, application performance, and resilience for mid-range enterprises.

Evaluator Group: Evolving Datacenter Architectures

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:27:49 +0000

Companies of all sizes are either implementing server virtualization, expanding earlier pilot efforts, or exploring how to begin these projects. The widespread success results from the ability to improve efficiency while lowering capital expenditures. However, limitations with current generation infrastructure can reduce the effectiveness.

Citrix: From Builders to Pickers- How to Adapt to the Changing Role of IT

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:21:31 +0000

Workers tap into their network of friends on LinkedIn or Facebook for business advice. Someone might upload a marketing video onto YouTube, using a non-company-issued smart phone, while waiting for a dentist appointment. The modern worker blends personal and work lives in all sorts of ways; and it’s now the job of the IT department to keep up with this “consumerization” movement.

Citrix: A Geek’s Guide to Presenting to Business People

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:13:03 +0000

A lot of people consider public speaking to be one of life’s most stressful events. And for geeks, presenting to business people is especially terrifying. Business people —the phrase we geeks use to refer to everyone who isn’t technical —often seem confusing and capricious to us. They often respond badly to the way we like to present things. So, it’s not surprising that many geeks shy away from giving presentations to such unpredictable people.

Cisco: Gaining Steam

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:05:41 +0000

With maturity comes clarity, and the choice between public, private or hybrid cloud deployments is a prime example. According to a recent IDG Research Survey, private and hybrid cloud adoption is gaining strength at organizations of all sizes, and has the power to serve as a competitive advantage. However IT leaders must address certain barriers to fulfilling the promise of a private or hybrid cloud initiative.

Cisco: Redefining the Economics of Data Center IT Productivity

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:59:35 +0000

When organizations talk about improving their technology return on investment (ROI), they typically are referring to their investments in hardware or software but in fact, the grea test opportunity to increase your technology return may come from improving the productivity of your data center IT staff.

InfoStor: HP Client Virtualization- From Vision to Reality

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:47:14 +0000

Not so long ago, end-user IT infrastructure was fairly homogenous and predictable. Employees came into the office and booted up their desktops or workstations to begin their day. In this environment, enterprises that evaluated bringing virtualization to end users had three basic choices: Make the device a terminal server, wherein nothing actually existed on the PC itself; make it a thin-client, which had more autonomy but still depended heavily on the server; or, more frequently, opt for a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), whereby a desktop OS would be housed within a virtual machine (VM) that is actually running on a centralized server. Other enterprise requirements aside, each of these is a viable and adequate solution for employees who go to their desks every day to get their work done.

Juniper: Empowering Mobile Productivity

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:20:10 +0000

Today’s workers are mobile. They need to be connected to their corporate network or cloudbased applications around the clock and around the world—anytime, anywhere. Lack of fast network, cloud, and application connectivity and access impacts productivity, which impacts revenues and profits. Secure connectivity and access is as vital a requirement as pervasiveness and speed.

IDG: Strategy Guide to Security Information Management in Government

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:16:36 +0000

In today’s digital world, with its mobile devices and ubiquitous Internet access, citizens expect increasingly fast, convenient and accessible government services. And you as a state or local government are expected to meet these expectations. California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), for example, enables citizens to access their driving records via the Web. The state even has Android and iPhone apps that show the location of the nearest DMV office as well as its wait times.

IDG: Strategy Guide to Converged Infrastructure in Higher Education

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:11:59 +0000

IT is a critical tool in helping colleges and universities do more with less. And yet technology at higher education institutions is sometimes neglected. Old, nonstandard equipment and legacy infrastructures often impede teaching and learning with slow, unreliable access to information and applications. Some schools may not even have on-site IT support, so professors and administrators try to manage and troubleshoot systems along with carrying out all of their other responsibilities. This takes time and energy away from what’s most important: the students.

Aberdeen Group: Optimizing Business Performance

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:07:25 +0000

Aberdeen has been following the adoption of virtualization technologies for many years and as the adoption rate has grown, IT has been able to transform itself from an old “cost center” model to one of being more of a “business partner”. The adoption of virtualization technologies has allowed IT to become more supportive of business objectives and reduce the overall cost of their services, allowing those freed resources to be re-directed to more critical programs. CLevel managers that want more from their IT departments should understand the positive impact of virtualization technologies.

Enterprise Strategy Group: Analyzing the Economic Value of HP Cloud Solution for Microsoft

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:02:38 +0000

For most of their history, IT organizations have been plagued by server sprawl, poor resource utilization, and high capital and operating expenditures brought about by continuous data growth and new application requirements. Historically, as organizations added more and more infrastructure to account for rising demand, increased capital and operating costs squeezed IT budgets and ultimately created a situation where the demand for capacity started to outstrip the ability to supply that demand in an effective and efficient manner. Essential to this very issue was the fact that the majority of existing servers were vastly underutilized.

IDC: Mobile Video Collaboration- The New Business Reality

admin — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:10:33 +0000

A new business reality is emerging across all segments of the business spectrum, and it is creating opportunity and challenges that must be considered and planned for today. The new reality is the product of the convergence of mobility, video, and collaboration, driven by three megatrends: the consumerization of IT driven by the use of consumer-oriented devices and applications crossing over into the SMB and enterprise markets, the increased adoption and usage of videoconferencing across the consumer, SMB, and enterprise markets, and technology advances in the underlying foundation of mobile video driven by rapidly growing network broadband capacity and compounded by the growth of video-capable mobile devicessuch as smartphones and tablets.

Primus Business: Hosted vs. On-Premise PBX

admin — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:01:44 +0000

The adoption of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solutions across the world and within Canada continues to rise. According to a recent study from Reportstack, the VoIP market is expected to experience a compound annual growth rate of 6.46 per cent until 2016, and VoIP continues to be one of the fastest growth areas within Canada.

VMWare: A new Approach to Managing the Challenges of Highly Virtualized and Cloud Environments

admin — Wed, 01 May 2013 23:29:54 +0000

To effectively deliver IT services within today’s highly virtualized and cloud environments, businesses must transform classic disciplines of operations management. What’s needed is an approach that simplifies management by embedding and integrating management capabilities into the virtualization and cloud platforms themselves.

Solgenia: Unified Communications for the Modern Workforce

admin — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:38:49 +0000

Convergence – the merging of voice and data traffic onto a single network infrastructure – commenced in earnest during the 1990s, when corporations began investing in cost-effective network backbones to serve all of their communications requirements. Unified communications (UC) solutions, which leveraged this consolidated infrastructure soon followed, bringing together messaging, telephony and conferencing services on a single networked platform. Today, it would be difficult to overstate the impact of unified communications on workplace collaboration, business process efficiency and organizational agility. No longer restricted to enterprise-class customers, UC serves to enhance employee productivity, improve business performance and reduce operating costs for companies of every size.

Janrain: From Information to Insights: Understanding Big Data Online

admin — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:20:25 +0000

Never before have digital marketers been blessed with such immense quantities of online customer data at our disposal, yet been so incapacitated by how to use it. From personal information collected at registration to transaction history, clickstream data, social network streams and third-party data, marketers are sitting on a veritable gold mine of customer intelligence – one that remains largely untapped. This massive volume of consumer information has led to the coining and popularization of the term “big data”. But the advent of big data has yet to be followed by established practices for managing and using such data. In short, strategy and execution have not accelerated at the pace of the technology, which has led to more questions than answers.

Veeam: Hands-On Guide: Understanding Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012

admin — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:55:18 +0000

This whitepaper is designed to get you started quickly with Hyper-V 3.0. It starts with a discussion of the hardware requirements for Hyper-V 3.0 and then explains a basic Hyper-V–deployment followed by an upgrade from Hyper-V 2.0 to Hyper-V 3.0. The chapter concludes with a demonstration of migrating virtual machines from Hyper-V 2.0 to Hyper-V 3.0

Forrester: The Business Impact of Mobile Engagement

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:14:53 +0000

Smartphones and tablets are game changers for engagement because people carry them everywhere they go. Your customers and partners and employees have perpetual access to the vast resources of the Internet — and hopefully your mobile app as well — in the key moments of their day. In interviews with more than 100 mobile innovators, we have found four places where mobile engagement transforms services and processes: customer engagement, process acceleration, employee productivity, and new business services. Even at this early stage of development, you can see positive impacts of mobile engagement in apps from General Electric, Trane, and Uber Technologies. We close with a simple framework for prioritizing which apps and features people will actually use based how useful and convenient they are.

Taneja Group: Is Virtualized IT Stalled on Delivering Performance?

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:11:53 +0000

One of the hardest challenges for an IT provider today is to guarantee a specific level of “response-time” performance to applications. Performance is absolutely mission-critical for many business applications, which has often led to expensively over-provisioned and dedicated infrastructures. Unfortunately broad technology evolutions like virtualization and cloud architectures that are driving great efficiency and agility gains across wide swaths of the data center can actually make it harder to deliver consistent performance to critical applications.

Bridgeline: 7 Reasons to Consider Responsive Design

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:06:34 +0000

Creating a web strategy to deal with the rise of mobile devices boils down to three primary options: Developing a Native App, designing a separate Mobile Site, or recalibrating your primary website with Responsive Design. There is no magic bullet; each option comes with advantages and disadvantages. Consolidating web properties to provide visitors a one-stop outlet that already exists only seems logical and prudent. Responsive Design fills that void.

DocuSign: Sales Performance Optimization: 2013 Key Trends Analysis

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:02:28 +0000

The 2013 Key Trends Analysis provides a macro view of how the 1,200+ sales organizations that took part in this year’s study performed in 2012. We identify some of the major trends that positively and negatively impacted sales behavior in 2012, and overview the eight key attributes found in high performance sales organizations.

HP: Maximizing Your Infrastructure through Virtualization

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:58:55 +0000

Virtualization continues to be one of the most effective ways to consolidate, reduce cost, and make data centers more efficient. Gartner research outlines how to get the most from your virtualization efforts in their paper titled “Best Practice: Virtualize Your IT Systems Incrementally to Reduce Costs.” HP BladeSystem fits the needs of today’s demanding virtualized workloads to maximize the benefits recommended in Gartner’s research.

SilverSky: What to Look for in Cloud-based Email

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:49:00 +0000

The cloud is more than a buzzword these days. Companies large and small are looking skyward for critical business functions that were once seen as untouchable—and they’re doing it for the time- honored reasons of reducing cost and complexity. The prevailing wisdom not long ago was that a critical application like email had to be housed in a company data center where teams of expensive IT staff members could babysit it and do little else. But that’s all changed in the past few years.

GoldMine: CRM Assessment Benchmark

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:41:46 +0000

How well are you utilizing customer relationship management (CRM) processes and technology to run a more efficient organization? That’s what the team at GoldMine wanted to find out. So we designed an online self-assessment comprised of fifteen questions across five key technology areas for CRM: Centralized Database, Marketing Automation, Salesforce Automation, Customer Service, and Reporting & Management. This benchmark report analyzes responses from 174 participants with 88% representing companies of 1-250 employees, 9% 250-500, and 3% above 500.

FireEye: Definitive Guide to Next-Generation Threat Protection

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:35:40 +0000

As I’ve met with national leaders and customers around the world, I’ve found that there’s a great divide between the level of security they need for their networks and the level of security available to them using traditional security tools. That’s because the next generation of cyber attacks are already a part of their daily lives, but they’re stuck working with traditional security tools that are based on decades-old technology models.

Brainshark: iPads in the Enterprise: Embracing the Next Wave in Mobile Business Communication

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:26:31 +0000

Worldwide tablet sales continue to soar, but it’s not just consumers who are buying iPads in record numbers. With its sleek look, lightweight design and ever-growing collection of apps, the iPad is quickly becoming the preferred device for mobile professionals – and companies everywhere have begun to take notice.

HP: The cloud- Ineveitable But Not Ubiquitous

admin — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:44:32 +0000

It’s an age old question, where do I start? But with all the hype surrounding the cloud, that’s not the only question we’re hearing. Where will it be the most helpful? How can it help drive efficiencies? Where does it just not make sense? Should I move to the cloud, or not?

SafeNet: Securing File Data in Storage- Encryption Alternatives and Best Practices

admin — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:40:04 +0000

For security teams looking to secure file data in storage, there are a plethora of choices available, and each has its specific set of strengths and limitations. This paper offers a comprehensive look at the choices available, outlines the key criteria to consider in evaluating these options, and delivers some best practices that security teams can apply to help ensure their specific encryption deployments meet primary objectives.

Apttus: Contract Management Software- Buyer’s Advice

admin — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:36:20 +0000

Procuring enterprise software can be a difficult exercise. It is lengthy and fraught with pitfalls that unknowing buyers may fall into. Unfortunately, Contract Management Software is no exception. In fact, it may be even more challenging due to some key characteristics of the contract management process. Many of the comments in this document pertain to enterprise software generally even though we have focused on contract management software itself.

ActOn: Best Practices for Setting Up a Lead Scoring System

admin — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:32:10 +0000

Today’s marketing departments can ill afford to waste time chasing after the wrong prospects. Budgets are tight, marketing staffers are overworked, and marketing managers have their hands full running the show. But, by taking the time to set up a lead scoring system, you can assign points to potential prospects, target the attributes most often associated with serious customers, and more easily separate the wheat from the chaff. As Matt Heinz, President of Heinz Marketing, explains it: “By assigning relative point values to various customer activities and traits, you can better rank your leads and focus your marketing efforts where they will be most successful.” It sounds ideal—but it’s not a paint-by-numbers exercise. A well-designed system takes time, research, and cross-departmental teamwork to develop.

Zenoss: The Skeptics- 8 Reasons Application Developers & Customers May Fight Converged Infrastructure

admin — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:26:35 +0000

Your IT organization set a course for adopting Converged Infrastructure for some well-known business reasons. You’ll be faster & more flexible. You’ll optimize utilization. If you chose a FlexPod or Vblock, you can stand on the shoulders of giants and shout that your Converged Infrastructure has been thoroughly validated & put through its paces.

Nimble Storage: VDI Toolkit

admin — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:21:28 +0000

VDI has unique performance characteristics that legacy storage architectures were never designed to support. This paper explains how Nimble Storage flash-enabled storage solutions provide a solid platform for VDI environments that eliminates extensive management of tiered legacy storage architectures to provide just-in-time performance.

Jive: Want to Develop Better Marketing Content Faster? Stop Using Archaic Methods

admin — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:35:25 +0000

While marketing has changed a lot in recent decades, one thing hasn’t: A huge part of the job revolves around the creation of new content, from sales collateral and customer presentations to product demos, white papers, websites and advertising. But though the methods haven’t evolved, the expectations have.

HP: Your path to a Microsoft Private Cloud with HP Storage

admin — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 23:17:13 +0000

Are you struggling to deliver maximum data availability to end users, serve diverse workloads quickly and efficiently, and control costs in your Windows Server environment? Has past growth led to over-provisioned and underutilized hardware, and increased management overhead? If so, you should consider what a Microsoft Private Cloud can do for you, and why HP Converged Storage provides the ideal foundation for building a private cloud using Windows Server 2012.

SAP: Managing the Total Cost of Ownership of Business Intelligence: A 360-Degree Perspective

admin — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 23:11:11 +0000

For many companies, total cost of ownership (TCO) is out of control. And the problem is growing, fueled by ever-increasing demands from the user community, massive new sources for data, new capabilities, shadow IT landscapes, and the cost of keeping people abreast of all the changes.

Citrix: 50 Things You Need to Know to Be a Top IT Pro

admin — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 23:02:55 +0000

Information technology is evolving at a blistering rate. Skills IT professionals learned in college, certificate programs, and on the job even 18 months ago are often barely relevant today. Trends like IT consumerization, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), globalization, mobility, and a struggling economy mean that traditional approaches to IT management need to be set aside as quickly as we can devise new models to meet demands for ultimate flexibility and agility.

NetApp: NetApp and VMware View Solution Guide

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:30:42 +0000

The NetApp solution enables companies to optimize their virtual infrastructures by providing advanced storage and data management capabilities. NetApp provides industry-leading storage solutions that simplify virtual machine (VM) provisioning; enable mass VM cloning and redeployment; handle typical input/output (I/O) bursts such as boot storm, antivirus storms, efficient operating system (OS), application, and user data management, and so on; provide individual VM backup and restores; deliver simple and flexible business continuance; and help reduce virtual desktop storage.

HP: The cloud: inevitable, but not ubiquitous

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:24:40 +0000

There’s lots of hype about the cloud. It will change IT forever; it will replace the way we currently compute; it will change the way we work, the way we interact, and the way we live. The hype is definitely intense, and to some extent it accurately reflects the potential of what the cloud can do. But how can you separate the technology and potential from the marketing fluff? You need to understand that while just about every enterprise will soon use cloud computing, not everything will be in the cloud.

Riverbed: Network Troubleshooting At The Speed Of Thought

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:19:15 +0000

Riverbed understands packet capture and analysis better than any other company. Three leading innovators in this field – Steve McCanne, co-creator of TCPDUMP, Loris Degioanni, creator of WinPcap, and Gerald Combs, creator of Wireshark® software – continue the advancement of Riverbed application-aware network performance management (NPM) solutions that today’s leading enterprise and government organizations rely upon for their IT performance needs.

CloudBolt: Command and Control Product Overview

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:08:31 +0000

CloudBolt Command and Control (C2) is a next-generation Cloud Manager that automates the request, provisioning, management, and delivery of compute resources to users. C2 spans not just virtualization, but also public and private cloud-based compute technologies. As a next-generation Cloud Manager, CloudBolt C2 goes beyond typical resource management to orchestrate provisioning across the rest of the typical enterprise technology stack, including data center automation/con! guration management (collectively CM) tools, network, storage, and physical hardware. Because CloudBolt C2 can oversee all aspects of resource provisioning, it can fully automate the task of requesting physical and virtual compute resources, regardless of the location or hosting technology used.

AccelOps: Cloud Security Survey 2013

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:58:06 +0000

AccelOps, the leader in integrated Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), performance and availability monitoring software for on-premise and cloud-based data centers, conducted a survey in February 2013 to better understand how IT professionals are deploying cloud services, what issues are inhibiting security and how existing security (SIEM) and monitoring tools are meeting the challenges of cloud security.

Axcient: SMBs Need More Than Just Backup (but they don’t need to spend more)

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:50:25 +0000

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) need to keep their businesses up and running just as much as larger companies. Yet they are challenged by several limitations when seeking out a solution that meets their mission-critical data recovery, application uptime, and data retention needs. These include: • Limited funds • Limited IT resources • Limited/inadequate solution options designed for SMBs. With these challenges in mind, this paper identifies and explores the top 5 evaluation criteria SMBs should carefully consider when determining the best solution for their data protection and business continuity requirements. SMB end users should feel confident in implementing a solution that they find meets all of these criteria.

McAfee: McAfee PCI Certification Service Simple, affordable PCI compliance validation for online merchants

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:20:42 +0000

If you operate an online business that accepts credit or debit card payments, you are probably well acquainted with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). But perhaps you still have trouble keeping up with its recurring requirements: external vulnerability scans each quarter and annual self-assessment forms.

Splunk: Splunk, Big Data and the Future of Security

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:12:41 +0000

Current IT security tools and mindsets are no longer adequate to meet the scope and complexity of today’s threats. Internet security has evolved over the last ten years but advanced persistent threats and the sophistication of the malware have fundamentally changed the way security teams must think about these new threats and the tools used for detective controls.

LifeSize: Top Ten Ways You Can Improve Top 10 Communications with Video Conferencing

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:06:03 +0000

Imagine sharing information at a level of quality that makes everyone feel like they are in the same room—and with a level of simplicity that allows everyone to join in. Whether your goal is to go to market faster, respond more swiftly to competitive pressure, improve your bottom line or simply to increase employee morale, video conferencing brings everyone into the meeting, regardless of where they are.

Citrix: 50 Things You Need to Know to Be a Top IT Pro

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:57:54 +0000

Infonetics Research, Inc: The Cost Advantages of Hosted Telephony

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:47:35 +0000

With the growing number of IP telephony service and equipment options, there has never been a better time for enterprises to find a communications solution that fits their business needs. Top requirements of all businesses today in evaluating new communication solutions include lowering costs, consolidating vendor and provider relationships, refocusing IT staff, and providing flexibility to their employees. For these reasons, we are finding more businesses considering hosted PBX services.

FORRESTER: The Future Of Mobile eBusiness Is Context

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:42:47 +0000

Consumers will adopt and use convenient services and products. In mobile, this translates to services that offer immediacy and simplicity through a highly contextual experience. The ability to deliver highly contextual experiences will evolve in sophistication with technology in the phone. Imagine the buying and selling opportunities that will emerge when phones can make size, color, and scent recommendations. eBusiness and channel strategy professionals must leverage context to deliver the right information at the right time to the right place to increase conversions. This report, an update to “eBusiness: The Future Of Mobile Is User Context” originally published on July 11, 2011, outlines the future vision of Forrester’s solution for eBusiness and channel strategy executives working on their mobile eBusiness strategy. It maps the evolution and the key driving principles eBusiness professionals should follow to maximize their opportunity within this rapidly changing and transformative space.

LivePerson: Top 12 Things To Look For in a Great Mobile Chat Solution

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:20:58 +0000

Extending chat to mobile customers is one of the hottest topics in mobile engagement. With mobile devices playing an increasingly important role in both e-commerce and in-store spending, connecting with customers wherever they are has become more important than ever. And just as live chat has become a critical part of customer engagement on your website, it’s just as important on your mobile site and mobile app!

Riverbed: How Application-Aware Networks make the Impossible Possible

admin — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 23:01:31 +0000

Network traffic patterns have dramatically changed in the past decade from predictable and point-to-point transaction-oriented activities to bandwidth-hungry, always-on, many-to-many interactions. Virtualization, cloud services, new Webcentric application architectures, video and unstructured data, and big data are the newest entrants to the corporate network. For many organizations, the only way to ensure the stability of the network is to overprovision network infrastructure, standardize equipment, and attempt to cobble together metrics from discrete systems to plan for any upcoming changes. Not only are these practices outdated and insufficient to handle the next generation of network workloads but such “stovepipe” approaches are beginning to drive up costs, threaten reliability, and reduce IT responsiveness to business demands.

NetForecast: Seeing Through the Fog: Managing Application Performance in the Cloud

admin — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 22:32:09 +0000

As your business applications recede from desktops into data centers and from there into the great beyond that is the public cloud, your view into the performance of important applications becomes increasingly shrouded in mist. The network interface becomes the best point at which you can measure performance, thus you should instrument your network to measure performance there. If you have good network visibility, it will enable you to inventory all your applications and baseline their performance before moving them into the cloud, and to measure performance continuously thereafter to ensure it meets your business needs.

Riverbed: Mitigating the Risks of IT Change

admin — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 22:18:57 +0000

Effective IT planning and decision making are dependent upon having a complete asset inventory and an accurate understanding about dependencies available before, during and after IT change activities. Application discovery and dependency mapping (ADDM) solutions automate the process of discovering and mapping transactions and applications to the underlying infrastructure and application interdependencies.

Riverbed: Network Performance Management Comes of Age

admin — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 21:58:31 +0000

As an IT or network manager, you know that what matters is the productivity that users get from your IT systems, and that this in turn depends on your entire infrastructure performing well. You may have various statistics and metrics available for measuring the network and the systems, but at the end of the day users don’t care about the metrics as such; they really perceive IT performance in terms of application availability and application
performance.

Jive: WANT TO DEVELOP BETTER MARKETING CONTENT FASTER? STOP USING ARCHAIC METHODS

admin — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 21:51:47 +0000

riverbed: Virtual Cascade Shark – Enabling ubiquitous visibility in virtualized enterprises

admin — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:33:31 +0000

Enterprises have been using Cascade® products from Riverbed Technology for many years to discover, monitor and troubleshoot their physical network and application infrastructure. Cascade network performance management (NPM) solution offers a rich set of functionality to understand network and application performance in the context of end-user experience, and to uncover problems in an organization’s physical infrastructure. With enterprises aggressively embracing virtualization, this sea change has brought new visibility gaps in IT infrastructure.

EMA Radar™ for Application-Aware Network Performance Management Q3 2010 – Riverbed Vendor Profile

admin — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:24:45 +0000

Riverbed offers the Cascade solution for Application-Aware Network Performance Management (ANPM) for use in both enterprise and communications services settings. The Cascade product technology was obtained by Riverbed when they acquired Mazu Networks in early 2009. Until that time, Riverbed was focused on their core business line of WAN Optimization Controllers and worked mostly with third-party technology partners for performance monitoring and reporting.

EMA: Riverbed Advances Visibility into Virtual Data Centers with Cascade 9.5

admin — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:18:50 +0000

In January 2012, Riverbed® Technology announced version 9.5 of its Cascade® network performance management solution, which included a number of major enhancements. Collectively, the new capabilities are designed to improve visibility into the health and activity of applications and services traversing networks from the branch to the data center. In particular, the addition of the Virtual Cascade Shark, a software-based version of the existing Cascade® Shark® appliance, combines with added support for recognizing and representing Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs) and Load Balancers (LBs) within the monitored environment to offer new insights and improved visibility into advanced, highlyvirtualized data centers.