Aggregation Services: The Main Entry Point for IaaS and Public Cloud

Cloud computing is currently the hot topic in IT. At the same time, cloud computing has become one of the most nebulous terms in IT. Even definitions in the cloud space are different from “expert” to “expert.” Consider the cloud computing definitions below from highly credible sources:

Gartner: Cloud computing is a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service using Internet technologies.

Forester: Cloud computing is a standardized IT capability (services, software or infrastructure) delivered via Internet technologies in a pay-per-use, self-service way.

IDC: Cloud computing is an emerging IT development, deployment and delivery model, enabling real-time delivery of products, services and solutions over the Internet.

Wiki: Cloud computing is the use of computing resources (hardware and software) which are available in a remote location and accessible over a network (typically the Internet). Read More »

Meet the Experts: Jason Brown

We’re starting a new series of posts in which a CDW Solutions Expert will be asked the same five questions. You get to learn more about our Experts and learn their thoughts on IT. The first is Jason Brown a Technical Field Mobility Solutions Architect.

What’s Your Dream Project?

Working on a team that embraces forward looking thinking and a strategy that can include all plan points from one end of the architecture to the other. Read More »

Building The CDW Technoliner

So I get a call from a manager, “ I have a great project for you to work on, West Coast Customs is involved”. Well, being a fan of the show for many years (so many I might show my age), I said “I’m in!”

On the first call I find out I’m working on a bus. But not just any bus, a huge motor 40+ foot coach. When I first saw the rendering it was only the outside and I thought this is going to “wow” a lot of people. But what the heck do we put inside? Read More »

Taking the wraps off of Cisco MDS 16 Gb FC Directors and Switches

We’ve come a long way since the original Cisco MDS line debuted a decade ago. Cisco maintained strong upward and backward compatibility allowing upgrades to a director, replacing line cards and supervisors, taking us from 2 to 4 then 8 Gb FibreChannel (FC) – while preserving the chassis, backplane and power supplies. There have been four generations of line cards to meet the growing demands of datacenters hungry for more bandwidth and throughput. The original operating system (SAN-OS) proved so solid and robust it became the basis of data center networking: Nexus OS (NX-OS) powering Cisco’s current Ethernet and FC networks. Read More »

Data Loss Prevention: It’s Not a Question of “If” but “When”

50 million customer records were stolen from Living Social. Were you one of them? If you’re one of the millions of people that like to look at their daily deals, then you likely were. While credit card information was not stolen or accessed, other personally identifiable information (PII) was. This includes names, email addresses, dates of birth and some encrypted site passwords. Despite the fact that clear text passwords were not stolen, Living Social still emailed their full user database advising them of the breach and encouraged all users to change their passwords. (This created another issue as many spam filters saw these emails as phishing attacks and blocked them from getting to end users’ inboxes.) While Living Social is a consumer site, this breach has far reaching ramifications for all types of businesses. It also raises two important questions:

  1. “What does this mean for my business?”
  2. “Are we protected against a targeted attack or APT like that one?” Read More »

Microsoft Power View: Delivering Self-Service Reporting and Data Exploration

In my last post I provided an overview of PowerPivot. I’d like to build upon the discussion in this post with a focus on Microsoft’s self-service business intelligence (BI) capabilities using Power View. You’ll see how to bring your data to life through rich visualization and interactivity.

Visualizing Our Data

Power View is the last step in our self-service BI solution exposing the tabular data model that we built in PowerPivot. It provides a visually rich, interactive reporting and data exploration experience through an incredibly simple to use interface. Through its drag and drop style of report building Power View was designed to truly bring BI to the masses. It allows anyone in an organization to quickly learn how to use the tool in order to create reports and visualize the data however they prefer in order to derive business insights. Learning from past experiences with Report Builder, Microsoft’s goal for Power View was to allow for quick and easy creation of powerful reports without overwhelming end users with too much complexity.

Read More »

How to Build a Flexible, Secure Mobile Policy in 5 Steps

Mobility is top of mind for everyone these days. The number of connected devices continues to grow as we transition from The Internet of Things to The Internet of Everything. However, we continue to struggle with building an effective strategy to manage mobile devices. I see a myriad of policies that are attempting to address things like smart phones, tablets, bring your own devices (BYOD) and so on, but very few organizations are successful in implementing these. Luckily the technology already exists to make this process easier, so the focus of this blog is to make sure you go down the right path when building a flexible, but secure policy. Read More »

Using IBM Social Media Analytics to Improve Your Business

Social Media is an undeniable part of everyday life. With the pervasiveness of mobile devices, social media is available anywhere at pretty much any time. Here are just a few figures that highlight and give a sense of scale of current Social Media usage:

By now, most organizations are listening to the different social media outlets for information relevant to them. Listening is a good starting point for deriving meaningful, actionable insights from social media, but it is not enough. Organizations need a way to move beyond listening so they can collaboratively solve business problems. Read More »

Measuring the ROI of Video Conferencing

The case for Video Conferencing can be an easy one to make. Many of the clients we work with have some rather simple needs that Video can quickly address.

  • Getting their disparate teams to Collaborate on projects
  • Using Video Conferencing with home based workers for more face-to-face time with other employees
  • Working with vendors or partners to enhance their relationships
  • Enabling users who are across town from each other in high-traffic cities to stay at their desks and work with teams that are miles, or sometimes with traffic, hours apart.

However, many clients who install these solutions quickly learn that tracking the usage of the systems and staff may not be an easy task. Return on Investment (ROI) is a key and critical component for tracking the use, expansion, and overall success of any video deployment. Regardless of the type of endpoint (room based, personal system, or desktop), making sure that the teams are using them to their fullest extent can now be as simple as logging into a Web Portal. Read More »