Stories by Ann Bednarz

Building public awareness and achieving workforce diversity will help data-center operators contend with skills shortage, says Uptime Institute.

VMware is expanding its security range with vSphere Platinum - a new version of its virtualization software that has security integrated into the hypervisor and combines vSphere’s native security capabilities with AppDefense, VMware’s data center endpoint security product.

Q2 used to be a .Net shop with a traditional three-tier architecture and SQL backend. Now it’s made the transition to an open-source microservices architecture enabled by container technologies. To upgrade its dated network operations center (NOC), Q2 built a new integrated operations center (IOC) that elevates incident management to a more vital and higher profile discipline at the Austin, Texas, company.

Datacenter management as a service, or DMaaS, is a cloud-based remote monitoring service that aggregates and analyzes large sets of anonymized customer data to help companies better anticipate equipment failures or capacity shortfalls and detect inefficiencies.

The rise of programmable networks and software-defined networking has changed the role of the network engineer, and accepting those changes is key to career advancement. Network engineers need to become software fluent and embrace automation, according to a panel of network professionals brought together by Cisco.

Dell EMC is kicking off its Dell Technologies World conference with storage, servers and hyperconvergence upgrades aimed at enterprises that are grappling with new application types such as artificial intelligence and machine learning; ongoing digital transformation efforts; and the pressure to deliver higher performance and greater automation in the data center.

Vendors including IBM, Pure Storage and Nvidia are providing AI product packages, cloud services and consulting help aimed at accelerating adoption of enterprise-ready artificial intelligence.

In a composable infrastructure world, physical compute, storage and network devices are treated as services. The composable aspect refers to the ability to make those resources available on the fly, depending on the needs of different physical, virtual and containerized applications. Composable infrastructure takes things a step further than converged or hyperconverged infrastructure, with more fluid resource pools.

Hyperconvergence is winning over enterprises that are drawn to its potential to ease management, streamline the deployment of new workloads, and optimize costs. As much as 20% of business-critical apps will transition to hyperconverged infrastructure by 2020, predicts Gartner, which recently gave the technology its own magic quadrant.

VMware has expanded its portfolio of cloud tools to help enterprises improve the manageability of their public cloud and on-premises environments. At the same time, VMware announced the first global expansion of VMware Cloud on AWS, its joint hybrid cloud service with Amazon Web Services.

NSS Labs tests data center intrusion prevention systems (DCIPS) from Fortinet, Juniper Networks, McAfee and Trend Micro.

The global data center market will transform over the next few years as companies modernize their data center facilities, shift to more software-defined infrastructure, and adopt more autonomous IT infrastructure.

Edge computing is driving demand for micro-modular data centers, which are prefabricated IT facilities encapsulated in their own protective shell. Climate controls, power distribution and network connectivity are built into the units, along with physical security, fire suppression, shock absorption, and protection from electromagnetic interference.

The upside of life as an IT contractor is alluring. You get to be your own boss, accept only the jobs you want, and work flexible hours. With each assignment comes the opportunity to learn new skills and gain exposure to different environments. But there are obvious sacrifices – job security and paid vacations, for starters.

Inflexible IT architectures can be a barrier to organizational change. As companies embark on digital transformations aimed at improving their business, the pressure is on IT to reduce complexity and increase the efficiency of enterprise systems and applications.