Profile of Charles Babcock

Editor at Large, Cloud Member Since: 11/15/2013
Author
News & Commentary Posts: 3430
Comments: 1573

Charles Babcock is an editor-at-large for InformationWeek and author of Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution, a McGraw-Hill book. He is the former editor-in-chief of Digital News, former software editor of Computerworld and former technology editor of Interactive Week. He is a graduate of Syracuse University where he obtained a bachelor's degree in journalism. He joined the publication in 2003.

Cloud Powers a Hybrid IT and New Digital Existence

8/4/2017
Enterprise data centers aren't going away soon, but the role of the cloud will expand rapidly in our personal and business lives.
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Future Software: Only as Good as the People Who Build It

8/2/2017
In a world increasingly dependent on software, we may need to develop the art of falling back to the most recent system that worked.
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NIST, IEEE Pair Up to Drive Cloud Interoperability

8/1/2017
Two major standards bodies have grabbed the bull by the horns in an attempt to make workloads and services mobile across clouds.
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Software Is Changing the World, Just As I Foresaw

7/31/2017
We now say, 'Software is eating the world.' In 1984, many years ago, it was clear that it was going to change it.
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Cloud Technology Partners: Combat the Cloud Resistance

7/27/2017
It might seem unlikely, but the sweeping change brought about by a cloud implementation sometimes breeds its own resistance.
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Accenture: Seek Business Value in Digital Transformation

7/25/2017
Mike Sutcliff says Accenture Digital helps companies transition from legacy to digital operations to resist disruption, find new customers.
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Old Database Problems In a New Guise: As a Service

7/24/2017
ScaleArc: If cloud services are the "white knight" sent to solve IT problems, then database as a service is going to fall short.
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Amazon Positioned to Use Data to Dominate Where It Wishes

7/20/2017
If Amazon expands into food delivery, it will obtain a treasure of consumer information that it can use for its next expansion.
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Unity Rules As OCI Launches 1.0 Container Spec

7/19/2017
After a two-year effort, the Open Container Initiative has its image specification and runtime spec ready for vendors and container users.
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Amazon's Efficient Distribution Key to Winning Consumers

7/18/2017
Amazon's online ordering started the company's success; efficient distribution will continue to expand its retail footprint.
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Koehler: IBM Cloud Advances with Integration, New Services

7/17/2017
Bryson Koehler, CTO of IBM Watson/Cloud, predicts a more unified face, powerful compute engine for IBM Cloud in coming year.
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Not Easy To Get To Digital Transformation Jump-off Point

7/14/2017
The Hackett Group has attempted to define how a company gets to the digital transformation stage in its latest statistical report.
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CompTIA: IT Skills Gap Appears to be Growing

7/12/2017
A survey of 600 IT and business professionals finds more new skills are needed to keep the business up to date and competitive.
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Can Amazon Disrupt More Markets? Let Me Count the Ways

7/11/2017
Amazon may be poised to enter the pharmacy as well as grocery business; it trains customers to expect quick delivery.
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Pedal to the Pavement: Chinese VCs Take on Ride Hailing

7/10/2017
Chinese giants Alibaba and Tencent to challenge the world in bicycle rentals, while spiffing up their digital services.
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Greene: Advanced Services to Fuel Google Cloud Leadership

7/6/2017
Google Cloud Chief Diane Greene predicts Google's expanding, advance cloud services will soon place it among the Gartner designated leaders.
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Data Center Automation Advances Hybrid Cloud

7/6/2017
Data center infrastructure management is a new form of automation, minimizing some legacy system drawbacks.
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Air Force Intelligence Unit Goes Agile

6/30/2017
The US Air Force is determined to get more agile to produce applications that can be useful in times of conflict.
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Google Assistant Superior, but Alexa Owns Households

6/28/2017
Alphabet has a shot at winning the smart home device market with Google Home vs. Amazon Alexa, according to an Edison Investment Research report.
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Globally, Chief Digital Officers Start to Take Hold

6/26/2017
A PwC survey of 2,500 leading companies finds 19% have apppointed CDOs, up 300% from the year before.
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Not Doing Big Data in the Cloud? Better Get There

6/23/2017
Forrester Research says competitive advantage will follow big data analytics' move to the cloud; join in, or get left behind.
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Google Knocks on Door of Gartner's Cloud Leaders

6/22/2017
Google is close but still no cigar when it comes to sharing the realm of the cloud leaders in the Gartner IaaS Magic Quadrant.
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Alibaba Edges in as Microsoft, Amazon Grow Stronger

6/20/2017
Gartner's 2017 Magic Quadrant for Infrastructure as a Service shows a newcomer, Chinese supplier Alibaba; Amazon maintains its leadership.
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Blockchain Barges into Insurance via IBM, AIG

6/16/2017
IBM helps AIG create a cross-country, multi-party international risk policy tailored to use blockchain's security and trust.
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Digital Infrastructure for Cities Leads to Big Savings

6/16/2017
A Cisco report claims $2.3 trillion is waiting to be realized through digitized services, city management; cites Houston, Oslo, Barcelona as examples.
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Hybrid Cloud Is Gathering Steam for Small, Medium Businesses

6/15/2017
Harvard Business Review Analytics finds smaller enterprises gaining more from hybrid cloud than large enterprises.
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The Need to Go Digital Is Clear; Not Everyone Can Get There

6/14/2017
PwC report on the 2017 Global Digital IQ says some organizations becoming top performers in going digital; others, not so much.
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DevOps Research Says Practice Yields Benefits Beyond Code

6/13/2017
Survey: Organizations that adopt disciplined DevOps thrive in ways that remain difficult for others; automation, quality, continuous delivery.
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Toolmaker Adopts Amazon Greengrass for IoT

6/12/2017
Stanley Black & Decker sees an expanded role for itself in the digital economy and is exploring how AWS Greengrass will enable it to launch new services.
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Red Hat: Linux Handlers Can Learn To Manage OpenStack

6/7/2017
Red Hat cloud architect Julio Villarreal-Pelegrino says you don't need to know OpenStack to succeed at implementing it.
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Harvard Business Publishing Cuts IT Costs 18% With Cloud Move

6/6/2017
Director of IT Ken Griffin tells an Interop ITX audience there are savings on Amazon, provided you make it through the expensive, "migration bubble".
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Cloud Power, Fear of Lock-in Grows Among IT Managers

6/2/2017
Mary Meeker's Global Internet Trends: As the digital age expands, so does fear of technology lock-in by cloud vendors.
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Shutterstock CIO on Leadership: Reduce the Cycle of Fear

5/31/2017
Shutterstock grew so fast it needed to convert applications and move them into the Amazon cloud quickly; API-based development followed.
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Unleash Developers to Produce Rapidly Evolving Software

5/30/2017
It's practical, not theoretical. Developers who rely on cloud resources will be among those producing the software 'eating the world.'
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Wanted: Protection From Intrusive Hacks for Connected Vehicles

5/26/2017
Cloud Security Alliance sees danger, issues guidelines for how we'll need to secure the connected vehicle environment in the future.
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LinkedIn Leads Standardized Cloud Gear Alliance

5/25/2017
A group of major backers has formed the Project19 Foundation to support standardized gear and networking across cloud data centers.
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Harvey Nash/KPMG: CIOs See Role Becoming ‘More Strategic’

5/23/2017
In its 19th annual survey, Harvey Nash/KPMG found CIOs preoccupied with making companies more digital, and expected to fill more strategic role.
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Under Pressure, IT May Need to Fail Fast With Some Projects

5/22/2017
Lines of business want services fast; IT will need an investment budget that allows it to try to achieve desired solutions and sometimes fail.
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Cisco DevNet Prepares Developers for Programmable Network

5/19/2017
Three-and-a-half years ago, Cisco launched DevNet to prepare developers for the programmable network, accessed through APIs. A Cisco exec provided an update in an Interop ITX keynote.
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MTM's Kleyman: Build Your Business on a Secure IoT

5/18/2017
CTO of MTM Technologies Bill Kleyman says your future customers will reach you over the Internet of Things.
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On-Premises Workloads Require Higher Staff Investment Than Cloud

5/18/2017
Nemertes analyst says research shows lower cost for cloud for some types of workloads; results are less clear for predictable, steady-state apps.
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GE Draws Up Playbook for Digital Transformation

5/15/2017
GE spent several years trying to effect its own digital transformation; now it's issued a playbook on how it's done.
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Gartner Chart Puts Salesforce at Top of Low-Code Platforms

5/11/2017
A new Magic Quadrant looks at platforms for the high-productivity building of applications, including mobile apps; Salesforce scores.
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Cloud is How You Design Your Software, Not Where You Run it

5/10/2017
At Interop May 18, Cornelia Davis will describe the elements of cloud-native software, the type that's designed to be change-tolerant.
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Oracle Disses Cloud Real Estate to its Own Detriment

5/9/2017
In the midst of a rush to the cloud, Oracle CEO Mark Hurd told Fortune 'real estate' is not much of a factor. He may learn otherwise.
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IT Must Alter Investments To Play in Digital Economy

5/8/2017
At Interop, Mark Tonsetic of CEB will discuss how your view of the digital future should start guiding IT investments.
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MTM's Kleyman: Embrace the Coming Internet of Things

5/5/2017
Interop speaker Bill Kleyman sees security as one component of the Internet of Things, which all companies are going to have to embrace.
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Uptime Institute: Enterprise Server Footprint Flat or Shrinking

5/3/2017
In its annual survey, the Uptime Institute finds enterprise cloud usage flat, even while the server footprint shrinks.
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Salesforce Survey: High Performance IT Targets Innovation

5/2/2017
State of IT in 2017 shows stresses of expectations of the 'customer era,' need for advanced skills sets on beleaguered staffs.
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IBM Initiated Cloud Storage Price Cut Wave; All Drop 14%

5/2/2017
In the third quarter of 2016, IBM bid for a larger share of the enterprise market in the cloud by dropping storage prices; AWS, other bigs followed.
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At Harvard Business Publishing, It Was a Do-or Die Move to Cloud

4/28/2017
IT Director Ken Griffin knew a half-committed move to the cloud would never get there; he adopted a lights-out date for the data center.
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Luxury Fashion Finds Bigger Sales, Returns In Cloud

4/26/2017
Net-A-Porter didn't know how much money it was leaving on the table when the Web site failed to keep up with traffic. New microservices captured it.
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Let's Talk Cloud at Interop ITX

4/25/2017
You can join cloud computing expert and InformationWeek editor at large Charles Babcock as he takes in his pick of more than two dozen informative cloud related presentations at the upcoming Interop ITX in May.
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Walmart: Agility Enabled with React.js, Node.js

4/20/2017
Alex Grigoryan needed to attack multiple fronts as he revamped the Walmart Web site; the answer was decentralized agile teams with Node.js.
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Nemertes CIO Burke: Do You Know Your Cloud TCO?

4/19/2017
It's not simple: Nemertes CIO John Burke to explain how to evaluate your TCO when using a cloud service and whether real savings are available.
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AI to Become Key Competitive Factor by 2020, Says Tata

4/18/2017
Regions around the world are adopting AI at different rates. A TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) survey illustrates how it may allow its adopters to outstrip competitors.
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What You Need to Know About Containers

4/14/2017
Interop ITX will offer a day-long, Container Crash Course for those who want to learn more about containers' impact on enterprise operations.
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DevOps: It's an Ongoing Culture, Not a Project

4/12/2017
Splunk's Chief Technology Advocate Andi Mann will sound off on DevOps as a culture-driven phenomenon at Interop ITX and the disciplines it requires.
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Cloud Appeal of Google, Microsoft To Enterprise Improves

4/10/2017
451 Research found in a survey that Microsoft Azure appeal was up from 22% to 35% of respondents in two years.
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Cloud and Virtualization Enable 'Active/Active'

4/7/2017
At the heart of disaster recovery is database system recovery, and ScaleArc urges users to think active/active, not DR.
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Battle Intensifies To Become Cloud Hardware Leader

4/5/2017
HPE and Cisco are joined by merged Dell EMC as big three contenders to supply cloud providers. Are white box manufacturers a threat?
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Software Is Eating the World? Don't Be Lunch

4/4/2017
Xceligent CIO Joe Emison to talk about how IT must change if Marc Andreesen's 'software is eating the world' proves to be true.
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Managing APIs Is an Increasingly Complex Burden

3/31/2017
Cloud Elements study analyzes data on enterprise API use and concludes that API use is growing rapidly, but it also takes careful management.
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Inscrutable Amazon Bill: Behind It, a $1 Million Savings

3/28/2017
When Segment found its AWS bill going up unexpectedly, it did a deep dive to find the cause and realized a $1 million annual savings.
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Maritz IT's Journey: From Sinkhole to Full Business Partner

3/23/2017
Gerry Imhoff knew things had to change, but it would need to be a culture change, not a new generation of technology.
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RightScale's State of Cloud: Cut Wasted Use

3/22/2017
RightScale issued its sixth annual State of the Cloud report and found Docker a top DevOps tool, but concerns about 30% usage cloud waste.
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Cloudbleed: Final Damage Assessment Still Pending

3/21/2017
Cloudflare CEO Prince has published a persuasive case that Cloudbleed hasn't caused any detectable damage. Let's go slow on that.
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Cloud Benefits: Liberty Group Tech Chief Knows What They Are

3/20/2017
When The Liberty Group found increasing demand for its services in 2012, it rehired Rob Hiltbrand to take it to the cloud.
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Integrate Serverless With Your On-Premise IT Operations

3/17/2017
AbbVie architect Keith Townsend will discuss how serverless functions in the cloud can be meshed with IT operations on premises when he presents at Interop ITX.
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A Cloud Move Means Big Changes for IT Operations

3/14/2017
At Interop ITX, JP Morgenthal of CSC will describe what changes when it comes to operations management in a move to the cloud.
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Google Cloud Polishes Its Appeal To Enterprise

3/10/2017
At its Next conference in San Francisco. Google outlined some of the ways it is using a $30-billion investment to increase its footprint in the enterprise cloud sector.
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Is Amazon's Growth Running A Little Out Of Control?

3/7/2017
AWS operations explains that it was tougher to restart its S3 index system this time than the last time they tried to restart it.
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Red Hat Expert: OpenStack May Not Be As Complex As You Think

3/6/2017
Red Hat's principal cloud architect says you can get into OpenStack, one step at a time, accomplishing business objectives along the way.
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Serverless Computing Isn't Simple to Explain

3/2/2017
Serverless computing is a concept that's difficult to encapsulate in a few short words, as illustrated in our expert discussion.
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Deploying Containers to the Cloud: Many Options

3/1/2017
At Interop ITX 2017, a container deployment expert will demonstrate how users can select an option for moving containers to the cloud.
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Workers Welcome AI But Remain Skeptical About Its Benefits

2/24/2017
Survey by Atlassian finds wide worker expectbations of working alongside AI software and discomfort with the prospect.
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Evernote Completes Migration To Google, Data Center Shutdown

2/23/2017
The online user content capture system, Evernote, has moved 2.9 PBs of data into the Google Cloud and shut down its primary data center.
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Bloomberg Adds Machine-Learning To Apache Solr Search

2/22/2017
Bloomberg has created an open source way to use machine-learning models to weight searches, then add their values to the Solr search engine.
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Containers May Work With, Or In Place Of, Private Cloud

2/20/2017
OpenStack is presented as a good container management environment; what if container managers can manage the infrastructure as well?
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What's Cognitive Computing, And What's That Noise Overhead?

2/17/2017
Soon after an IBM round table on cognitive computing in San Francisco, the need for it at that location became abundantly clear.
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'Unbounded IT' Draws On Internal, External Resources, Says Deloitte

2/16/2017
Deloitte Consulting report on the future of IT sees 'Unbound IT' aligned with the 'kinetic enterprise' and able to tap external tech resources.
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Private Cloud Merits 2nd Look As Container Environment

2/14/2017
Jonathan Bryce, executive director of the OpenStack Foundation, says Project Zun gives enterprise IT a new reason to reconsider OpenStack for private clouds.
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Deloitte: These Emerging Technologies Will Play Critical Roles

2/13/2017
Deloitte Consulting cites seven emerging technologies as critical to the future of IT: dark analytics, mixed reality and blockchain included.
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Ponemon: Doubt Dogs IT On Security Tools, Spending

2/10/2017
The Ponemon Institute shows how IT security staffs want better technology tools and better skill sets to ward off invasive threats.
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Microsoft Earnings Report Can't Disguise Amazon Cloud Size

2/8/2017
Google and Microsoft are sometimes portrayed as overtaking Amazon Web Services; better read between the lines.
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It's Still 'Intel Inside', But Now Intel's Inside The Cloud

2/1/2017
Intel re-architects x86 toward the needs of the cloud, builds in management features for large scale server power savings.
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Agile Is King, But Continuous Integration Is An Elusive Goal

1/31/2017
A Dimension Data survey of development professionals found most enterprises have adopted agile methods, but only 14% can update hourly.
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Expert: Threats To Secure Cloud Operations Are Evolving

1/30/2017
John Howie, former COO of the Cloud Security Alliance, says secure providers aren't enough; threats to users are evolving fast.
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IT Service Management In Disruption, Moving Toward Automation

1/26/2017
A wave of change is sweeping through the suppliers of ITSM, reflecting the enhanced ability to add analytics and automation to the field.
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Nokia: Don't Be Too Quick To Dismiss Private Cloud Savings

1/25/2017
Nokia's total cost of ownership study finds most enterprises can save 25% of data center costs by converting it to private cloud.
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How Kubernetes Came To Lead The Container Management Pack

1/24/2017
Kubernetes advocate points to software's roots inside Google, its self-healing features and its container cluster know-how.
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Deep-Seated Container Vulnerability Found, Corrected

1/23/2017
Researchers at SUSE and Docker turned up a previously unknown vulnerability in container operations and issued a patch.
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Private Cloud In Retreat, Public Cloud To Fore: Report

1/19/2017
Our '2017 State of Cloud' report finds private cloud losing its viability and hybrid cloud operations too complex; public cloud use advancing.
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Bain: Is Container Use Optional? Probably Not

1/17/2017
Containers are less an option and more an essential technology for achieving the agile company needed to survive in the digital economy.
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Digital Workspaces Winning Acceptance Through Flexibility, Security

1/17/2017
VMware survey shows digital workspace users gaining enterprise agility through greater mobile workforce activity, added business initiative.
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Enel Moves Onto Amazon To Implement New Utility Strategy

1/13/2017
The giant Italian utility, Enel, is moving to the cloud to support it's Open Power strategy around the world, adding green power sources.
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451 Research: Containers A $2.7 Billion Market By 2020

1/12/2017
451 Research sees containers filling a more prominent role in the cloud technologies market by 2020; the container ecosystem growing fast.
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Global Survey: Innovation, Movement Of Data Get More Restrictions

1/10/2017
Foundation finds more countries passing restrictions on use of intellectual property within their borders, export of data out.
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Amazon: The Self-Fueling, Perpetual Motion Machine

1/9/2017
Amazon's retail operation is now paired with what's known to be a highly successful cloud business: Are the two accelerating each other?
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'Snowmobile' Shows AWS At Its Blue-Collar Best

1/5/2017
The surprise appearance of a tractor-trailer rig on stage at AWS ReInvent in Las Vegas illustrated a new way to move a petabyte of data into AWS data centers.
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