In the time it takes to get a cup of coffee, any one of the hundreds of engineers and developers at mobile computing chip-maker Qualcomm Inc. can provision himself a new server -- one that's fully configured with compute, storage, networking, middleware and other resources. "You can get something provisioned within 15 minutes," says Matthew Clark, senior director of IT.
Who should lead a business performance management project: IT, finance or both? For Lisa Mullaney, former director of Chiquita's financial planning and analysis group, the answer was clear: "This is an application and a tool set that is owned by finance."
Microsoft has been ramping up its cloud-based Exchange Online offering for its largest customers -- even though that may mean cannibalizing its own on-premises Exchange Server installed base.
Servers get most of the glory when it comes to energy management, but networking gear is about to catch up.
Jim Thomas said no to Windows Vista -- but Windows 7 is an entirely different matter.
Faced with the continued commoditization of servers, IT vendors this year will try to differentiate their offerings by moving toward more highly integrated, unified compute platforms.
OK, you've virtualized as much as you can. Now what? Consolidating physical servers through virtualization doesn't address underlying complexities because it doesn't reduce the total number of servers you're managing. Here are three tips for taking it to the next level.
The recession may have forced Media General Inc. to scale back its grand plans for server virtualization in 2009, but like many other businesses, the communications company is planning a major push to make up lost ground this year.
Here's the scenario: Attackers compromise a major brand's Web site. But instead of stealing customer records, the attacker installs malware that infects the computers of thousands of visitors to the site. The issue goes unnoticed until it's exposed publicly.
It's hard to understand who in their right mind would want to incur the wrath of "Triple H," the intimidating superstar of professional wrestling. But when a poser created a fraudulent MySpace account in Triple H's name, it wasn't the wrestler that the perpetrator had to contend with.
Twitter's popularity may have exploded over the past year, but its feature set continues to evolve at a seemingly glacial pace. New users quickly realize that they need to shop around in the Twitter developer ecosystem for add-on software and Web-based services that fill in missing features and address the annoyances that the microblogging service's deficiencies present.
As Hurricane Ike bore down on Houston one Friday last September, the Continental Airlines' flight operations center, located on the 14th floor of a glass-sided downtown high rise, suddenly went dark. For the airline's pilots and flight crews, however, business proceeded as usual.
She had me at hello ... or just about. Our conversation had barely started when privacy activist Betty Ostergren interrupted me to say that she had found my full name, address, Social Security number and a digital image of my signature on the Web.
It's been about three years since San Diego's five major hospitals first convened to discuss sharing electronic medical record data in an effort to improve diagnoses, reduce errors and improve the quality of patient care. The group held several meetings and entered discussions with a vendor as a possible corporate sponsor -- and that was that.
With 20 parks and nearly US$1 billion in sales, Six Flags is the second-largest amusement park operator in the world. Since coming to Six Flags as part of a management reorganization two years ago, CIO Michael Israel has overseen a bottom-up rebuilding of the IT architecture in the parks and in the company's data center, which moved from New York to Dallas. Israel describes the amusement park business as a shopping mall with rides. "Spend per attendee is everything," he says.