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Inside Data Center Preparedness

By Christian Perry, Processor.com on 2/22/2011

Planning & Testing Remain Critical Components To Weathering Disasters

Key Points

Disasters can strike at any time, so it’s essential to implement a thorough disaster recovery plan that ensures your systems and data will be available in emergency situations.
Preparation, communication, and expectations should all be part of the process when developing preparation plans.
No disaster recovery plan is complete without regular testing that ensures the plan will be accurate and effective when it’s finally put into action.

Settling into a comfort zone is all too easy when systems are running without interruption for weeks, months, or even years. But when disaster strikes, that zone will be obliterated in seconds, leaving data center managers scrambling to restore systems and order. Although it’s easy to believe disaster will never strike your environment, recent data shows disaster scenarios reach data centers far too often.

Virtualization takes center stage in Windows service packs

By Jon Brodkin, NetworkWorld on 2/22/2011

Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 almost ready to go.

As the first service packs for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 ship Feb. 22, they will bring better virtualization capabilities to the operating systems.

Two new features in Windows Server called Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX improve virtual-machine density and the ability to deliver rich graphical desktops to Windows 7 PCs and other clients.

Carlyle Group's ERP Question: To Host or Not to Host?

By Jennifer Lawinski, CIO Insight on 2/22/2011

Carlyle Group's CIO David Roth shares lessons learned in choosing and deploying an ERP solution while adhering to a 12-month deadline.

When The Carlyle Group decided the time had come to upgrade its Enterprise Resource Planning system, it gave itself one year to deploy a new solution.

The key to obtaining buy in on your IT project

By Caron Carlson, FierceCIO on 2/22/2011

When you try to persuade decision makers to take on a new technology, process or system, you almost inevitably come up against a detractor, and sometimes he or she may have real knowledge of the subject at hand. The key to rising above attacks on your proposal is to keep the discussion focused on your own territory, writes John Kotter, an emeritus professor at Harvard Business School, in a post at Harvard Business Review.

The 7 deadly sins of software development

By Neil McAllister, InfoWorld.com on 2/22/2011

Recognize the worst traits of programmers everywhere and save yourself from developer hell

Being a good developer takes a lifetime of training and practice. But without proper discipline, even the best programmers risk falling prey to their worse natures. Some bad habits are so insidious that they crop up again and again, even among the most experienced developers. I speak of nothing less than the seven deadly sins of software development. Read on to hear how lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride may be undermining your latest programming project as we speak.

Identifying Weak Points In A Disaster Recovery Plan

By Cynthia Harvey , Processor.com on 2/22/2011

An Outside Perspective, Testing & Regular Maintenance Are Key

Key Points

When creating a disaster recovery plan for a data center, it’s critical to involve an outsider with a fresh perspective.
Testing your disaster recovery plan will point out weaknesses in your preparedness and help to familiarize your employees with what to do in an emergency situation.
Because business needs and technology change so rapidly, you need to update your plan at least once a quarter.

If your data center hasn’t experienced a disaster yet, chances are, it will someday. For businesses, having a good disaster recovery plan can mean the difference between surviving those events and shutting down for good.

iPad data dilemma: Where cloud storage can help

By Mel Beckman, InfoWorld.com on 2/22/2011

Tablets and cloud storage seem like a marriage made in heaven, but it takes third-party apps to bring them together

Tablet computing is a decade-old technology, but one that lay buried since users rejected Microsoft's "heavy OS" approach a while back. A year ago, Apple's iPad resurrected the tablet computing concept, delivering a lightweight sheet of computational glass with a pleasant, responsive user interface and a blizzard of applications. Users love it, and now a barrage of wannabe tablets are flooding the marketplace. All do reasonably well at the four applications users access most: Web, email, books, and media. And the half million or so apps in the collective app stores of Apple, Android, and BlackBerry would seem to fill every conceivable mobile need.

But users, particularly business users, want more...

VMWare shows off mobile virtualization on Android

By Nancy Gohring, NetworkWorld on 2/22/2011

Users can securely seperate work applications from their personal applications

VMWare is showing off a mobile virtualization platform that will let people run a personal profile and a seperate, secure profile for work applications on the same Android phone.

VMWare CTO Stephen Herrod showed off the software on an LG Optimus Black at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The company is now testing the software internally and with partners.

How to tell the CEO the hard IT truth

By Caron Carlson, FierceCIO on 2/22/2011

Explaining difficult truths about IT to top management can be a thorny task and one in which a lot of CIOs may not have significant training. Healthcare CIOs who are also MDs tend to have an easier time of it, however, because they have been taught how to deliver difficult news to patients, writes Robert Plant, an associate professor at the University of Miami.

Acer Unveils Intel- and AMD-Based Server Line

By Jeffrey Burt, eWeek.com on 2/22/2011

Acer is looking to parlay its success in the PC business with a new line of Intel- and AMD-based servers and storage devices that it is introducing into the U.S. market.

Acer, which over the past couple of years has muscled its way into becoming one of the top PC manufacturers in the world, is now looking to reclaim a part of the highly competitive U.S. server market.

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