InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

More smart phones webcasts

The lack of a standard identification system for financial counterparties makes it difficult for financial firms to develop a consistent and integrated view of their exposures, such as in the case of default of counterparty. This is a challenge not only for firms, but also creates an obstacle for regulators to aggregate and share information to effectively monitor risks. A robust Master Data Management (MDM) solution helps financial institutions implement Legal Entity Identifiers in order to better understand their business and better respond to regulations, like Dodd-Frank.

At the heart of a successful agile development team is a skilled group of developers. Agile software pros continuously deliver on their objectives, but they need robust development tools and practices to maximize their productivity. Attend this webcast to find out three pillars of success for Agile development success:

The challenges of effectively creating, managing, and deploying impactful content across many web properties and audiences are significant -- straining marketing and IT resources and increasing time and labor needed for current and dynamic commerce, marketing, and customer self service websites.

There are many reasons to strive to run your datacenter in an efficient manner. However, a common misconception is that energy efficiency in the datacenter puts the data at risk.

Simply preventing personal devices from accessing your network might not be the best option for your business. A well thought out BYOD policy and the proper wireless security strategy can empower your employees, save costs, and increase productivity while maintaining security and control.

Data encryption helps protect data by controlling access to it, and verifying its authenticity while maintaining its availability. Encryption is generally viewed as a reliable way to protect data for compliance purposes, but also is complex to implement.

It can be an IT manager's biggest headache ? managing the growing number of remote users that are on the go and exclusively work from their laptops over wireless networks. And when a system fails to restart, a site visit often times is the only option for recovery. Now, with the powerful combination of Intel's latest vPro technology and Dell KACE Appliances, IT managers can enjoy remote systems management and recovery that is both effective and economical.

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) should be seen as a platform for innovation, agility, flexibility and leverage, rather than merely for application development. In this Webcast you will learn how PaaS can make a difference in your organization and how to best leverage its capabilities. Join Saugatuck Technology Distinguished Analyst Mike West and Fujitsu Chief Architect Keith Swenson as they discuss how PaaS will form the foundation for today's new loosely-coupled business services. Topics will include:

Datacenter downtime is absolutely disastrous for your business. In fact, recent statistics from the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington show that 93 percent of businesses that experienced datacenter downtime for more than 10 days went bankrupt in less than a year. This webinar will discuss ways to avoid, and survive, downtime; and it will provide an analysis of energy-efficient solutions for datacenters that reduce the likelihood of overheating servers, excessive use of power, and exposure to harsh temperatures all of which contribute to datacenter downtime. Greg Schulz, Founder and Senior Analyst, StorageIO Greg Schulz is founder and Senior Analyst of independent IT advisory and consultancy firm Server and StorageIO. He has worked in IT at an electrical utility and at financial services and transportation firms in roles ranging from business applications development to systems management and architecture planning. Greg has also worked for various vendors in addition to an analyst firm before forming StorageIO. He is author of several books; active with social media with his engaging approach; and a top-ranked blogger. He has an undergraduate degree in computer science and a Master’s degree in software engineering. close this window

Across the healthcare industry, we are seeing forward-thinking organizations develop new competencies in anticipation of the opportunity that comes with industry-wide transformation. They are positioning themselves for success. And they are defining the future of healthcare.

IT organizations are under constantly increasing pressure to reduce risks and slash costs, particularly when it comes to data protection. At the same time, the value of the data they are charged with protecting has been steadily increasing. When you look at how data is being used, what it can provide to an organization, and how it can fuel growth, it becomes clear that these opposing forces can have disastrous business results. Data loss – even the smallest loss – can cripple an enterprise.

Complexity in software and systems design is only expected to rise, and more than half of CEOs doubt their ability to manage it. Design is a critical capability in ALM and key to achieving true agility and tackling complexity. While current design tools enable individual architects and developers to simplify aspects of application and systems complexity, their focus on the individual limits their ability to tackle this complexity.

Has the bring-your-own-device wave hit your organization? If not, it will; and if so, now is the time to consider the implications of balancing employee productivity with hardware and application security and support, as well as defining the proper policies and levels of acceptable risk around BYOD. As more and more IT Professionals struggle to incorporate personally owned laptops, tablets, and smart phones under the corporate infrastructure, certain challenges must be addressed. This webcast will help answer the “How-to” questions around juggling a diverse set of devices and operating systems as well as maintaining oversight of data and application use.

Power infrastructure is too important to overlook, and yet many IT managers see the UPS as a simple standalone item in their IT infrastructure. They don't realize that the way they purchase, setup, and maintain a UPS is dependent on their use of virtualization, open source tools, and connectivity within the organization. For instance, a UPS can help IT gain access to data, apps, and resources in an easy and seamless manner, making everyone more productive and decreasing end user downtime. In fact, when set up correctly, a UPS can be used as a managed site recovery tool for disaster avoidance. It can also have a profound impact on the cloud when correctly integrated into the IT environment. Deploying virtualization is an excellent way to reduce operational costs and deliver greater results for your IT budget. However, advanced planning is required to ensure seamless integration and business continuity.

Insurance customer engagements are growing in complexity as they take place via mobile, email, the web, voice and so on. The volume of information that must be captured is similarly growing. Automating document driven processes, by capturing and digitizing documents upfront, is a key step that insurers must take to manage what could quickly become information overload. Attend this webcast to find out how Capture Enabled Business Process Management (BPM):

What vulnerabilities threaten the integrity of your software supply chain and data? Can your enterprise really influence software vendors to meet your most important security policies and remediate insecure software?

Do barriers to operational efficiency prevent your business from reaching growth targets? Do manual processes create gaps that prevent data from becoming available to users who need it? Every day, missed productivity opportunities add up to steady – and serious – losses in efficiency. When it takes longer to get work done, your business performance suffers.

Enterprises, service providers, and government agencies are all moving to virtual data centers, or cloud architectures, or the new Software Defined Data Center (SDDC), to obtain all of the well-documented benefits: agility, efficiency, and cost control. But the move to these dynamic, virtualized, cloud architectures is creating new challenges for the management teams who are responsible for ensuring service availability and performance to the business.

Mobility, portals and self-service technology have all combined to help life insurance carriers be more responsive and retain customers. But there's more work to be done as life insurers prepare for 2013. You need a customer focused operations that is a seamless operating model.

A poorly managed database can deal your business a deathblow. Slow response times, inflexibility, and the inability to scale as your business grows can put a grinding halt to your applications - and in a world where competition is fierce for the customer dollar, you can't afford downtime or a poor user experience.

Most IT shops are leveraging the cloud in some fashion -- from hybrid deployments to complete private cloud implementations. Even so, some technology execs remain wary of the cloud based on perceived security risks.

Rational Focal Point a tool that is heavily appreciated among organizations and users for it's power, simplicity and flexibility to provide support within areas like portfolio (application, IT. product, service) management, product management, demand management. The product that has been on the market for more In then 10 years and our constant dialogue with our customers have provided us great insights. We would like to share this experience and secure that everyone understand how easy it could be and how rapid you can "get up and running" and generate value out of Rational Focal Point.

IBM PureData System, the newest member of the IBM PureSystems family of expert integrated systems, is purpose-built for data services. Two models, PureData System for Analytics and PureData System for Operational Analytics, are designed specifically to meet your mission-critical big data, data warehousing and analytics needs. Each system is workload-optimized for deep / advanced analytics on big data, or for operational warehousing and analytics, delivering the highest possible throughput and performance.

What qualities must a city have to be a premier location for a datacenter? Environmental factors may be the first things we consider when determining a safe location, but there are other crucial matters to consider as well, and these will change depending on your primary business objectives. What qualities should you be looking for in a datacenter city?

Mobile applications are quickly emerging as the face of many companies at the same time they help increase employee efficiency and drive down operating expenses. With stakes this high, quality of applications is critical. Yet testing professionals and tools steeped in traditional desktop/web testing environments are playing catch-up with app developers who are racing ahead with new functions leveraging the power of the most modern mobile platforms.