MCPc Blog

February Monthly Roundup: Top IT Industry Articles

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

Each month, we share a collection of articles we’ve recently read that provide insight on prominent IT topics. February’s roundup takes a look at: iPads in the enterprise, how mobility and constant connectivity affects today’s workforce and IT, tips for successful VDI implementation projects, a step-by-step guide to building a next-generation data center, and data-warehousing expectations from Gartner.

iPad Adoption

In iPads Storm the Enterprise, Maria Korolov reports on the rapid adoption of iPads in corporate environments, and their increasing support by the C level. In fact, a quote from Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer states: "Enterprise CIOs are adding iPad to their approved device list at an amazing rate… Over 80% of the Fortune 100 are already deploying or piloting iPad, up from 65% in the September quarter.”

As Korolov explains, one likely reason for the recent uptick in corporate acceptance is iPad’s upgraded operating system (iOS), which includes enterprise-level security features such as application-level encryption and the ability to input security controls on the machines.

She goes on to explain common uses for the iPad, a few business-friendly apps (focusing largely on CRMs for mobile sales teams), key features for frequent travelers, and additional security tips to protect customer and corporate data.

For more on iPads in the enterprise, see Korolov’s complete article.

Mobility

In Constant Connectivity: The Way We Work Today, a philosophical and informative article on today’s working habits, Mark Settle explores the issues of “constant connectivity” and its effects on both end users and IT departments — from personal/professional balance, to network availability, to hardware support, to software “wars,” to security.

He wraps all findings into an “IT Manifesto for the Constantly Connected Workforce,” encouraging CIOs and other technology leaders “to switch from being a reactionary force trying to hold onto the status quo to demonstrating true technology leadership by proactively supporting the use of new access devices throughout the enterprise.”

Settle goes on to offer three steps for CIOs to start embracing mobility:

1. Continue to support standard devices, but encourage employees that want to use their own devices to do so. However, make them aware that they are responsible for providing tech support on technologies they’ve procured.
2. Rather than fighting commercially developed applications, test the ones that seem to have potential, and encourage employees to use those apps that can make their lives easier.
3. Start moving key business applications to the cloud, providing employees with anywhere, anytime access to desired functions.

Read Settle’s complete article for a pop-culture peppered story outlining the history of work in America, and the rationale behind his recommendations.

VDI Implementation

David Messina tackles the topic of how IT professionals can successfully roll out a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to their organizations in Best Practices for Maximizing VDI Success.

According to Messina, end-user satisfaction is the make-or-break measurement against which VDI pilots or proof of concepts are measured. So, to keep pilot employees happy and help ensure company-wide adoption, there are three key technology components to consider: 

1. Reliable network connectivity, whether accessed via LAN, WAN, VPN or other lower-speed links. Employees must be able to access applications as they would without VDI. Messina stresses the importance of accounting for bandwidth needs not only for average use times, but also for peaks of activity.
2. Real-time visibility into systems performance, including the network, storage, desktop hosts, servers, security gateways and more. This proactive management is important to ensure quick response times if problems arise that would affect the end-user experience.
3. End-user empowerment, such as the ability for them to record activity when facing errors. This reduces the need for IT to try to replicate problems and increases incident-response time, resulting in employee satisfaction.

Data Center Architecture

In the four-part series, Building the Next-Generation Datacenter – A Detailed Guide, Birendra Gosai offers an in-depth strategy for moving your organization to the cloud, “from an entry-level virtualization project to a mature dynamic data center and private cloud strategy.” Each article within the series details one of four key phases, and includes a Gantt chart with key tasks involved and resources required.

1. Server Consolidation — How to properly consolidate your server environment, using virtualization, to reduce server sprawl and make more efficient use of resources.
2. Infrastructure Optimization — How to build and maintain a mature, optimized infrastructure so that tier-1 workloads can confidently be virtualized.
3. Automation and Orchestration — How to control VM sprawl (uncontrolled workloads) and reduce OpEx through automation and orchestration capabilities within the virtual environment.
4. Dynamic Datacenter — How to develop an agile IT environment that is service-oriented, scalable and secure.

If you’re considering server virtualization and/or cloud computing for your organization, this detailed guide can provide you with a solid understanding of the complexity of this undertaking, and how you can approach it in a step-by-step fashion.

Data-Warehousing Trends

Summarizing a recent Gartner report, Georgina Swan shares the biggest trends expected to impact the data warehousing market through 2012 in her article, Nine Data-Warehousing Trends for the CIO. The trends include:

• Organizations will use intensive proof-of-concept testing to make their final decision for data warehouse database management systems.
• Data warehouse-as-a-service and in the cloud are expected to continue to grow in popularity.
• Open source database management systems are being developed specifically for data warehousing; expect to see more players emerge over the next 12-to-24 months.

For details on these, and the other six trends to look out for, see the complete article.

What Do You Think?

What articles, blog posts, videos or podcasts did you find interesting last month? Post a comment, and we’ll be sure to keep an eye on those sources for future wrap-up articles like this one.

This post is an MCPc blogging team collaboration.

Stay Connected with MCPc: Subscribe to the blog; follow us on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.