Gartner is making some dire warnings including one of another recession. Gene Hall, Gartner's CEO says IT managers are facing a period of "unprecedented uncertainty." While Alvaka Networks is having a robust year with surging revenues, I have to agree. The cautious footing, one of being prepared for a new recession is a smart posture to take right now.
At the Best of Breed Conference on October 25-26th, I had the privilege of listening to Larry Bonfante, CIO of USTA discuss how the position of IT has shifted from utility provider to the role of "trusted advisor/business enabler.” He mentions how to utilize technology to drive brand, revenue, and engage consumers. This topic points to the fact that CIOs must be business leaders and just not technologists. So, how can you make a difference? He answers, “By understanding your
The average number of PCs per IT employee is 25.
• The average IT budget $$ per IT employee is $220,000.
• Average number of data center sq ft per IT employee ranges from 40-150.
• 80% of organizations with 500+ deployed PCs are managing 5+ TB of data.
• IT budgets range from 1.5% to 8% of revenue, depending on vertical market.
• Over 90% of organizations with 10+ IT employees are supporting 15 or more servers.
Some may call them legitimate patent enforcers protecting an inventor's rights under US patent law, others call them patent trolls. I write this column to draw your attention to disturbing patent enforcement activity that may unsuspecting come haunt you and your firm.
I have been very disturbed by recent e-mails I have gotten from peers across the country. Some are getting informed that their clients who use Ethernet technology are getting sued by the new entity that holds the 3Com patents for Ethernet. One such peer writes, “One of my clients has been pulled into this. Basically the assertion is that every non 3-Com Ethernet device is illegal due to patent infringement. They are not only going after manufacturers, but also end users as well.“
It seems some of the largest Ethernet vendors in the industry are girding for a fight with this outfit. In the meantime, end-user companies such as yours are getting caught up in the fight.
Here are a couple of links. This first one is pleasant sounding enough because it comes from U.S. Ethernet Innovations, LLC (“USEI”), the owner of the fundamental Ethernet technology developed by 3Com Corporation in the 1990s. The underlying message is ominous.
Here is a good slide deck from law firm Dorsey and Whitney who is fighting this sort of patent infringement case:
http://www.dorsey.com/files/upload/MP_CCS2010_Complete_Patent_Trolls.pdf
So I have now made you aware of a possible lawsuit against your firm, so now what do you do? I don’t have any specific recommendations at this time. I personally plan to keep tabs on this situation and see how it proceeds.
Enterprise Management Associates recently concluded a study asking why enterprise companies choose to work with MSPs. Jim Frey, Managing Research Director and EMA headed that study. Jim’s research uncovered a few interesting items. I will share a few of those here with you.
I just did a one hour webinar sponsored by IBM and brought to the Internet by eWeek, a Ziff Davis Media publication. If I do say so myself I think it went very well. Elliot Markowitz of eWeek said he thought it was the best webinar so far this year.
Click Here for the Webinar:
http://bit.ly/ltTkAPDisaster Recovery: Learning from the Past to Get Ready for the Future
ake a quick look at this report and the increases in bandwidth usage in the past five years. The next four years show that it is not expected to slow down its robust growth.
“The report notes that global IP traffic has increased by a factor of eight times in the last five years and will increase by another factor of four in the next five years.”
IPswitch conducted a recent survey of 100,000 end users who were asked about their most challenging compliance issues. According to the survey, compliance with the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was the clear winner for the top spot. Of the 100,000, 38.2% chose HIPAA and second place came in at 29.3% held by Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX). The next closest competitor for IT concern was compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) at a mere 9.2.
If you are regulated under any of the myriad government and industry regulations from ITAR, FIPS, CLETS and PCI, to HIPAA and Red flags, the process of responding to security, integrity, and availability verification is not a simple exercise. It is more than answering questions in the positive. Polices, procedures and declarations of compliance are contracts with your company, partners, clients and government regulatory bodies. What do I mean?
Disasters are a horrible thing. We can only hope to never have our lives and loved ones involved first hand. But disasters do happen and almost all of us will experience the pain and misery ourselves at different points in our lives. The key is to mitigate the loss and pain through careful preparation. During a disaster our first concern will be for the safety and protection of those closest to us. Once that is secured, we will all begin the transition back to normal life and work.
I have had many tell me that in a disaster they are not going to care about their servers and the PCs at the office. That is true however, at some point, normal life must return. So how do you do that? You must have a disaster recovery plan in place. It must have several components:
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