On a recent episode of data center podcast The Hot Aisle, Mark Thiele of Apcera talked about the dangerous belief among some business leaders that IT is created to reduce the cost of IT. Sounds ridiculous, but it happens in so many organizations that this belief deserves more attention. Certainly, a good IT department has a responsibility for efficiency. But if...
managed servicesInformation technology organizations have been pursuing business-IT alignment for as long as businesses have used computers. Wikipedia defines business-IT alignment as: A dynamic state in which a business organization can use information technology to achieve business objectives – typically improved financial performance or marketplace competitiveness. Some definitions focus more on outcomes, like the ability of IT to produce business value,...
Infrastructure as a serviceCelebrating Expedient Day in Pittsburgh! Customers, local dignitaries, and business leaders joined Expedient in Pittsburgh on January 25, 2018 for the public reveal of the Nova Place (formerly Allegheny Center Mall) data center expansion. Hundreds of guests enjoyed tours of the data center and even more joined us for food, drink, and networking with vendor partners – including Cloud...
Disaster Recovery CloudWhen we meet with companies to discuss the value of migrating from traditional on-premises IT to cloud infrastructure, business stakeholders and financial teams are often skeptical. Historically, these stakeholders have viewed the IT budgets and project plans in terms of previous budgets and transactions. When companies previously bought hardware, software and implementation services, the shopping list was simple: Capital...
Cloud ComputingTIC Gums is using Expedient’s On-Site Private Cloud with Disaster Recovery as a Service to meet several business objectives, including the modernization and migration of its aging IT infrastructure and the creation and implementation of a disaster recovery plan and solution. By placing an Expedient private cloud point of delivery (POD) on-site at TIC Gums’ premises, TIC Gums is...
Disaster Recovery Manufacturing Logistics managed services private cloud On Premise Cloud VMwareHow to Build a Business Case for Cloud Migration When an organization changes how it attacks a business problem, it’s quite common for these changes to be met with resistance. Information Technology is no exception. Switching from traditional servers, storage, and other on premises IT equipment to cloud versions of these services often triggers resistance from leadership, finance, IT,...
Cloud Computing private cloud public cloud hybrid cloudWhy Are So Many Companies Adopting a Multi-Cloud Strategy? Multi-cloud is a frequently cited topic in IT trade publications these days. Multi-cloud is defined in a few different ways depending upon the source, but for this article, we will define multi-cloud as the practice of using services from multiple, heterogenous cloud services, including public, private cloud, and software as a...
Cloud Computing hybrid cloudWhether power or software failures, network outage or natural disaster, major data disruptions to critical business applications are the norm, not the exception. These disruptions cost companies billions of dollars annually. Why? Businesses fail to meet basic BC/DR requirements, by not establishing true IT Resilience. During our recent “Evolution of Disaster Recovery” webinar with Zerto, we discussed critical aspects of...
Disaster RecoveryEvery year, more organizations are considering cloud computing as an alternative to traditional on-premises server, storage and network equipment. Change events that drive cloud consideration can include normal IT hardware refresh cycles, changes in company or IT leadership, new lines of business and new applications. How do these organizations compare cloud versus in-house both functionally and financially? Are they missing...
Cloud Computing Data Centers private cloud public cloud hybrid cloudAre you honest with your organization (and yourself) about technical debt? Let’s start with a definition. Much of the historical discussion about technical debt is in software development, even though technical debt can exist across the entire technology environment. Technical debt is often described as inefficiency that compounds over time, like inefficiency related to maintainability, problems, performance or architecture. Some...
Cloud ComputingOne of the most frequent questions I hear revolves around the rise of Software as a Service (SaaS) applications. IT professionals are asking “Why shouldn’t I use all SaaS applications if I can eliminate the need for a data center, the hardware and all the tactical IT effort that goes along with it?” The answer to this question focuses around...
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