What you need to know about enterprise connectivity
Connectivity is vital for all businesses. Whether you need to communicate with customers, clients or employees, or simply rely on it to deliver your service, the importance of connectivity cannot be overstated.
What’s more, this importance is clearly growing. In the always-on, cloud-based, mobile-first digital world that we inhabit, enterprise connectivity is not merely desirable -- it is expected at all times.
A closer look at the OpenStack platform
Providing an open source platform for cloud computing, OpenStack allows the use of multi-vendor commodity hardware in a data center to process and store data, and deliver networking resources. It’s managed through a dashboard or an API and is used by many major companies around the world to manage their IT infrastructure.
OpenStack grew out of a joint project between NASA and Rackspace Hosting and launched in 2010. It’s currently managed by the not-for-profit OpenStack Foundation created in 2012. More than 500 companies are now members of the OpenStack project. OpenStack has a six-month release cycle with each release planned at a design summit. The software is modular with components focusing on different services.
Women in tech earn 9 percent less than men in UK
Women in the UK's tech industry earn nine percent less money than men, according to a new report by Hired. In salary terms, that's approximately £5,000 a year in difference.
The worst part is the UK is leading the way globally, when it comes to gender pay gap in the technology sector. The US has a gender pay gap of 8 percent in the tech sector, Canada 7 percent, and Australia has the lowest gap -- five percent. Hired's report also says that it's not just about the pay.
What you need to know about data warehousing
Data warehouses are at the core of many information driven business initiatives. They’re used to store large volumes of historical data which can then be used in business intelligence projects to create knowledge-based reporting.
But a data warehouse isn’t just a single, huge repository of data, they come in a number of different types. What they all have in common is that they’re separate from day-to-day operational systems. Data is uploaded to a warehouse after it has served its primary purpose, so that it can be used for statistical analysis and decision support, once out of date for this purpose it can then move on to be archived.
How Western businesses should manage their websites in China
The idea that the Chinese market is emerging is an idea that firmly belongs in the past -- while online gaming is worth $22 billion, the construction market is worth a staggering $2 trillion. Cross-border ecommerce sales -- consumers from China buying goods from outside China -- is expected to reach just under a trillion US dollars in 2016. Outbound tourists from China reached 120 million in 2015, and they spent $104.5 billion around the globe.
Internet usage and access in China is growing, despite the restrictions in connectivity the region faces. Even though the Great Firewall of China can block certain types of content completely, making websites inaccessible and cause long load times, according to China Internet Watch there were 667 million internet users spending around 25 hours a week online in 2015 -- and this is only set to grow further. Combine these trends -- the necessity of digital commerce and the rise of China as a viable target market -- and then suddenly Western businesses need to carefully scrutinize how their brand presents online.
What you need to know about containerization
Just as in shipping physical cargoes where a load in a container can share transport on a train or ship with other similar loads while remaining separate, so in computing a containerized application is able to share machine space with many others whilst remaining separate in its own "box".
You might be wondering how this differs from full virtualization? A virtual machine provides a complete environment running an operating system and applications totally separate from the OS of the host server. A containerized application on the other hand is fully self-contained in terms of a business application, but is designed to work with the operating system kernel of the host. This provides a lighter weight alternative to full virtualization, allowing the application to be run on any physical machine that shares the same operating system, but otherwise behaving as though it’s independent.
What you need to know about social relationship management
The importance of social media to businesses has long been recognized. According to a recent survey, time spent on social platforms represents 28 percent of all online activity, so if it’s important to customers, it naturally becomes important for companies too.
While some firms are content to carry out intermittent checks on Facebook and Twitter, many businesses are now demanding more nuanced ways of monitoring social media content. Social relationship management, or SRM, is a software solution that promises to strategically analyze social network interactions to give your business a competitive edge. With organizations from a broad spectrum of industries all realizing the importance of social media, gaining greater insights in this field could make the difference between success and failure.
IT pros earn less in UK than Australia and New Zealand
A new survey has revealed that IT professionals working in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) earn a substantially higher salary than their counterparts in the UK and Ireland.
Computer Weekly and TechTarget's Salary Survey 2016 APAC found that the average salary of ANZ IT pros was between £50,000 and £94,000 a year. In order to learn more about IT salaries in the region, 450 IT professionals from Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia were questioned regarding how much they earned annually.
Most IT pros change jobs for a higher salary
IT experts will be doing a lot of job switching with the start of next year, according to a new report by Spiceworks. Releasing the report during SpiceWorld 2016 Austin, the company says more than a third (37 percent) of IT professionals will start looking for a new job next year.
More than a quarter (26 percent) plan on accepting an offer next year, as well. A vast majority (69 percent) want to do it in order to advance their IT skills, but 64 percent say they want a higher salary. Four in ten say they want to work in an organization where IT takes more priority.
What you need to know about unified communications
Unified communications (UC) refers to a technology whereby a number of different communication media or platforms are connected and accessed as if they were a single entity. In practical terms, this enables businesses to employ a less fragmented approach to communication, allowing them to access and manage their internal and outward comms more easily.
The breadth of applications covered by unified communications is relatively wide and growing to accommodate new methods of interaction. UC may incorporate email, instant messaging, smartphones, landlines, fax and social media outlets. Unified communications tools are also capable of handling both audio and video content, which is why they are increasingly being adopted by businesses located across a broad spectrum of industries.
What you need to know about smart cities
Imagine living somewhere where traffic jams were a thing of the past, where ambulance crews started on-route to an emergency before anyone had dialed 911 and where critical infrastructure operated at maximum efficiency. This utopian city may not currently be possible, but the Internet of things could change that in the not too distant future.
By connecting various aspects of the urban landscape to the Internet, local administrators will gain access to countless extra data sets that could help them provide better services for their citizens. These smart cities not only promise to improve the lives of their inhabitants, but also provide potentially lucrative commercial opportunities for a number of businesses.
What you need to know about automation
When businesses think of automation, they probably conjure up images of simplicity, efficiency, lower costs and increased productivity. Of course, this is something of an oversimplification and there are certainly challenges to adopting workplace automation.
However, it is not hard to see why more and more industries are automating their business processes. Whether it’s via robots or software, automation can eliminate the repetitive, manual tasks that, while essential, are a huge drain on employee time. Automation lets members of staff direct their energies into more productive areas, such as coming up with innovative new ideas.
What you need to know about enterprise resource planning
We’ve already covered what businesses need to know about enterprise content management (ECM), so now it’s time to move on to another popular business tool: enterprise resource planning (ERP).
ERP is business process management software -- typically consisting of a suite of integrated applications -- that allows an organization to manage its entire business and automate many back-office functions.
What you need to know about data centers
Data centers, in the sense of a centralized space where business information is stored, have always been important, but as we move towards an increasingly digital economy, and indeed, way of life, they have taken on even greater significance. The importance of data centers to our everyday actions can be glimpsed simply by taking a look at the amount of energy that they consume.
According to the National Resource Defense Council, the Internet, which relies on data center infrastructure for its utility, represents 1.1 to 1.5 percent of all global electricity use -- with the associated annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to between 70 and 90 large coal-fired power plants.
UK government can save £2 billion through digital transformation
A new report has revealed that the UK government could save £2 billion by 2020 if it took the appropriate actions needed to shift its citizens to digital services and away from outdated technology and legacy contracts.
Independent charity the Institute for Government argued these points in its latest report titled Making a Success of Digital Government, in which it noted how the government has yet to see a significant return when it comes to the savings that could be generated by a transition to digital services.
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