IT Strategy

ComputerWeekly Survey: Data very fragmented, and that’s a worry for most

Cohesity-sponsored survey finds most organisations store multiple copies of secondary data and worry about the cost and the effect on their competitiveness

Most UK organisations store up to 10 copies of the same secondary data, run four or five different products to manage it, and keep it in up to four locations, including two or three different public cloud storage providers.

Not surprisingly, a majority (54%) are also worried about fragmentation of their secondary – ie, not production – data.

Those are some of the findings of a survey sponsored by Cohesity, which provides scale-out data protection appliances and a data management platform.

The survey questioned 250 UK IT decision-makers as part of a study that also asked 650 of their counterparts in the US, France, Germany, Australia and Japan.

The average number of copies of the same datasets in secondary data held by UK respondents is five, and that came out the same across all countries except Japan, for which the number is seven.

More of the ComputerWeekly post from Antony Adshead

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27
Nov 18

Forbes – Where Cloud Computing Jobs Will Be In 2019

$146,350 is the median salary for cloud computing professionals in 2018.
There are 50,248 cloud computing positions available in the U.S. today available from 3,701 employers and 101,913 open positions worldwide today.
Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), Deloitte and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) have the most open cloud computing jobs today.
Java, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Software Development, DevOps, Docker and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) are the most in-demand skills.

More of the Forbes article from Louis Columbus

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19
Nov 18

InformationWeek – Bridging the IT Talent Gap: Find Scarce Experts

When hiring gets tough, IT leaders get strategic. Here’s how successful organizations seize the experts their competitors’ only wish they could land.

The technology industry’s unemployment rate is well below the national average, forcing companies to compete aggressively for top talent. When presented with a range of recruitment strategies by a recent Robert Half Technology questionnaire — including using recruiters, providing job flexibility and offering more pay — most IT decision makers said they are likely to try all approaches in order to land the best job candidates for their teams.

More of the InformationWeek article from John Edwards

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16
Nov 18

ZDNet – Eight signs you could be automating more of your data center

From Doug – These same reasons may be used to consider outsourcing your data center infrastructure to an enterprise cloud provider.

Organizations with existing data centers can save time and money by adopting automation tools for data center management. Here are eight signs you can do more to lighten your day-to-day workload.

As commodity server hardware becomes more powerful, infrastructure cost (in raw performance terms, such as IOPS per dollar) continues to plummet. As a result, it has become substantially cheaper to largely automate the software side of data center administration. In essence, the era of coffee-fueled IT staff spending their days pushing around electrons in order to keep the lights on at a given organization has ended, as data centers can be automated to manage computational, storage, and networking resources, as well as programmatically handle software lifecycle management and security patches.

More of the ZDNet post from James Sanders

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14
Nov 18

CIO.com – 13 Tips for Grooming IT Leaders

The ability to identify and train IT managers is a key factor in establishing productive IT teams. Here’s what to look for and how to hone leadership talent when promoting from within.

Newly forged IT managers face a daunting challenge: They need deep technical knowledge to oversee a technology team — along with a mix of specific soft skills that help them motivate their former peers.

With this in mind, how should you go about identifying IT staff who are ready to make the jump into their first management jobs? And what should their managers be prepared for, in terms of training them to lead, and providing what they need to be successful?

More of the CIO.com post from Paul Heltzel

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13
Nov 18

Baseline – What Companies Expect from DevOps

The majority of IT professionals at organizations that have adopted DevOps are happy with the results, according to a recent survey from KMS Technology. Most of these companies, in fact, indicate that their DevOps initiatives have satisfied goals, which include the need to boost time-to-production for new software. Survey respondents also hope that DevOps will result in greater collaboration between IT and lines of business. To ensure success, they recommend clearly articulating goals and plans, while gaining management support. It’s also key to overcome challenges in the form of limited skillsets and knowledge about DevOps among internal tech staff members. “DevOps offers an opportunity for IT organizations to improve communication and collaboration with lines of business, and the ability to automate various software development processes,” said Josh Lieberman, president of KMS Technology.

More of the Baseline slideshow from Dennis McCafferty

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12
Nov 18

CIO.com – How CIOs motivate their teams and foster productivity

Global IT leaders from Clemson University, Bayer Crop Science, American Academy of Family Physicians, PayPal, Marist College, and TIAA share strategies for motivating teams and keeping employees energized.

IT departments are comprised of individuals with their own unique talents, goals, and levels of emotional investment. Like a skillful conductor, the effective CIO must be a champion and mentor for these individual contributors, wedding their individual efforts and self-interest to a larger and harmonious whole. This effort is a strategic imperative and the ultimate test of leadership.

More of the CIO.com article from Brendan McGowan

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02
Nov 18

TechRadar.pro – The true cost of a data breach

Falling victim to a data breach hurts your business’ bottom line as well as its reputation.

From the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) back in May, which fundamentally changed the rulebook for storing data of EU citizens at least to the Butlin’s hack, 2018 has been a very significant year for cybersecurity.

One of the biggest changes centred around transparency, specifically businesses being forced to reveal within 72 hours if they have suffered a breach. While the US has had this type of policy for a while, businesses in the EU were not required to publicly state when a breach occurred, leaving them free to keep significant news like this from their customers. But now that things have changed, and it’s starting to heat up in the EU.

More of the Techradar.pro post from Jason Hart

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01
Nov 18

CIO.com – The case against the ‘business-savvy CIO’

Being business-savvy isn’t a radical recommendation. It’s clichéd. These days, tech know-how and business smarts are inseparable when it comes to transformational CIOs.

Surely you saw the article. It’s the one that says CIOs should be business people, not technical people.

I’m pretty sure it’s the same article, printed over and over again with minor variations, rephrasings, changes of emphasis, and different bylines since I first read it in 1995, maybe earlier.

It’s time to put a stop to the reappearances. In case its absurdity isn’t obvious, replace the “I” with any other capitalized executive middle letter and see where the logic takes you: CFOs should, according to this logic, be business people, not financial people; COOs should be business people, not operations people; CMOs should be business people whose knowledge of marketing is optional.

More of the CIO.com article from Bob Lewis

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31
Oct 18

CIO.com – 7 signs you’re suffering from burnout — and what to do about it

When you absolutely, positively no longer give a damn about your work, it’s time to stop and recharge. Your soul, colleagues and family will thank you.

Suddenly, after years of planning, managing, exceeding goals and conquering challenges, you realize that you no longer really care very much about your work. Formerly exciting activities, such as leading, influencing and innovating, don’t matter much anymore. These days, your biggest work-related thrill is playing the games you find on Slack.

More of the CIO.com article from John Edwards

Doug Theis Leave your comfort zone.