The most recent articles from VNU Business Publications

Cloud-based email will surge in "fundamental restructure"

Computing — 2008-07-04T11:38:00.000Z

Computing, Computing, Friday 4 July 2008 at 11:38:00

Storm approaching email market as clouds gather on SaaS provision

The percentage of commercial mailboxes using a cloud-provisioned model will grow from the existing one per cent of enterprise seats to 20 per cent in 2012, says a report from...

Adopting IT service management frameworks

Jim Mortleman — 2007-03-22T00:00:00.000Z

Jim Mortleman, Computing, Thursday 22 March 2007 at 00:00:00

A new IT management framework is set to be adopted across local government and beyond, reports James Mortleman

Analysts, consultants and IT managers are all clear that the next three to five years will see widespread use of the IT service management framework Itil across local government....

Lack of funding threatens British Library project

Parliamentary reporter — 2007-03-08T00:00:00.000Z

Parliamentary reporter, Computing, Thursday 8 March 2007 at 00:00:00

The archive digitisation programme could suffer, MPs are warned

Plans to cut government funding by between five and seven per cent are threatening the British Library’s digitisation project. The original proposal was to spend £2.3m this year and £3m...

Data sharing improves agency care

Lara Williams — 2007-03-08T00:00:00.000Z

Lara Williams, Computing, Thursday 8 March 2007 at 00:00:00

Yorkshire Forward is simplifying support to small local businesses

Regional Development Agency (RDA) Yorkshire Forward is introducing a single database to simplify its support provided to small businesses through government agency Business Link....

Honda revs up with complete IT refresh

Dave Friedlos — 2007-03-08T00:00:00.000Z

Dave Friedlos, Computing, Thursday 8 March 2007 at 00:00:00

F1 race team ensures infrastructure in place in time for new season

The Honda Racing Formula One (F1) team is replacing its entire IT infrastructure ahead of the new season, which starts later this month....

The noose tightens on software pirates

Tom Young — 2007-03-08T00:00:00.000Z

Tom Young, Computing, Thursday 8 March 2007 at 00:00:00

Firms must be more responsible as the law gets tougher

A mobile phone engineer was last week fined £3,400 for illegally sharing software over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Derek Butterworth, from Epping, was identified following a 10-month investigation by the Federation...

Domino's improves efficiency

Tom Young — 2007-03-07T00:00:00.000Z

Tom Young, Computing, Wednesday 7 March 2007 at 00:00:00

Upgrade will aid continued growth of web sales

Pizza company Domino’s has improved the efficiency of its web site service to cope with increasing sales demands. The solution from Affiniti has optimised Domino’s web site to improve customer service....

Essex overhauls its performance measures

Rachael Dell — 2007-03-02T00:00:00.000Z

Rachael Dell, Computing, Friday 2 March 2007 at 00:00:00

County Council looks to system to improve efficiency

Essex County Council has installed a performance management system to improve efficiency and allow information on corporate objectives and strategic data to be widely available....

Dow Jones computer error could cost millions

Tom Young — 2007-03-01T00:00:00.000Z

Tom Young, Computing, Thursday 1 March 2007 at 00:00:00

70 minute glitch of industrial average index caused by heavy trading

Dow Jones faces being sued after the business information provider admitted a computer glitch had misled investors and potentially caused some businesses to lose millions of dollars....

IT professionals show environmental concern

Lara Williams — 2007-02-27T00:00:00.000Z

Lara Williams, Computing, Tuesday 27 February 2007 at 00:00:00

Research finds over half of professionals are very concerned about their company's environmental impact

Ninety-eight per cent of senior IT professionals are worried about the negative impact their company has on the environment, according to new research....

ScottishPower improves customer service

Tom Young — 2007-02-26T00:00:00.000Z

Tom Young, Computing, Monday 26 February 2007 at 00:00:00

Web-based system will ensure customers receive rapid responses to online queries

ScottishPower is using an intelligent web-based self-service system to enable faster, more accurate answers to customer queries. The system, from Transversal, ensures customers receive rapid responses to their online account...

Fashion designer remodels IT infrastructure

Dave Friedlos — 2007-02-23T00:00:00.000Z

Dave Friedlos, Computing, Friday 23 February 2007 at 00:00:00

Ted Baker outsources to support global expansion plans

Fashion designer Ted Baker is outsourcing the upgrade and maintenance of its IT infrastructure to improve resilience and centrally manage its UK operations....

Calor Gas consolidates servers

Tom Young — 2007-02-23T00:00:00.000Z

Tom Young, Computing, Friday 23 February 2007 at 00:00:00

Gas supplier will reduce 50 servers to just four

Calor Gas, the UK’s leading supplier of liquefied petroleum gas products with four million customers, has overhauled its IT storage infrastructure....

The virtues of virtualisation

Linda More — 2007-02-22T00:00:00.000Z

Linda More, Computing, Thursday 22 February 2007 at 00:00:00

Businesses are discovering the advantages of virtual technology for storage, reports Linda More

Utility computing, enabled by the virtualisation of IT infrastructure, is being heralded as the future model by which IT will support high-performance organisations....

Case study: Liverpool Women’s Hospital

Linda More — 2007-02-22T00:00:00.000Z

Linda More, Computing, Thursday 22 February 2007 at 00:00:00

The hospital's six-strong technical team manages a complex and challenging IT infrastructure

Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation adopts a virtualisation model to improve access to resources and ease management. England’s largest specialist women’s healthcare provider has adopted a virtualisation model to manage its complex and challenging IT infrastructure with a small technical team of six. Joining 18 months ago as director of information management and technology, Dr Zafar Chaudry decided to put his experience of virtualisation, gained during work in the US healthcare system, into practice. Working with Dell, Chaudry has deployed a VMware ESX server, with nine PowerEdge servers and two Dell/EMC CX500 Sans and a PowerVault LTO tape library. Chaudry and his team have completed the server virtualisation process, and have almost finalised the centralisation and pooling of the storage capacity. Data is also mirrored to a second storage area network at a disaster recovery site. When the project started Chaudry estimated that it would provide growth for the next five years. ‘Initially, when we looked at our data we found about 500GB, now six months later we have about 1.5TB – that is a 300 per cent increase because, once people became more confident with the principle of centralised storage and the San, they would then admit to owning data. So we keep finding new bits,’ he says. The next step for the team is to tackle storage virtualisation. ‘The storage side is more difficult than the server side because you have to look closely at your data and work out appropriate policies for storage, retrieval and discarding,’ says Chaudry. ‘These policies then have to be ratified by the board and the people who are concerned with governance.’ Developing an information lifecycle management (ILM) strategy has also become an important factor for the hospital, with clinical data growing at 20 per cent each year. ‘We are at the start of our storage virtualisation process and it has to go hand-in-hand with our ILM strategy,’ says Chaudry. ‘So far we have gathered all our data together in one place, and mirrored it to give us resilience with minimal delay for retrieval. Now the organisation is ready for the next step but as yet there are no real standards for storage virtualisation or significant implementations.’ Lack of standards and vendor lock-in are two concerns for the hospital, but Chaudry recognises that a risk has to be taken. ‘We had a huge debate about iSCSI or the expensive fibre channel route, but at the time we needed to make a purchase iSCSI wasn’t mature enough,’ he says. ‘The reality is that whenever you buy any product there is lock-in to some degree. The final choice is about assessing the benefits to be gained against the price to be paid.’ Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation adopts a virtualisation model to improve access to resources and ease management. England’s largest specialist women’s healthcare provider has adopted a virtualisation model to manage...