In Depth

In Depth

• APAC organisations warm to cloud networking

  Organisations in Asia-Pacific are getting up to speed with cloud networking services, even as they grapple with the challenges of managing a hybrid cloud environment  Continue Reading

• Icelandic datacentres may lead the way to green IT

  Iceland may soon become even more attractive to companies wanting to minimise their carbon footprint while using high-performance computing services  Continue Reading

• IoT hits top gear with Extreme E in battling climate change

  All-electric car racing series teams with Vodafone Business to combat growing threat from global warning, through long-life IoT solar-powered sensors connected to a mesh network to warn of environment dangers  Continue Reading

• Mapping out the rise in checkout-free shopping

  There has been a boom in the number of checkout-free stores globally, but will that growth continue and which retailers are interested?  Continue Reading

• Luxembourg taps into innovation for better government tech

  With a diverse population and a digital inclusion and open innovation strategy, Luxembourg has developed a way of using technology to improve government services  Continue Reading

• Unstructured data storage – on-prem vs cloud vs hybrid

  We look at storage for unstructured data on-premise, in the cloud and across multiple locations. There are advantages to a hybrid approach, but there can be hidden costs, too  Continue Reading

• Employee experience joins CX for total enterprise view

  Total experience is emerging to join up employee and customer experience for organisations intent on being holistic and progressive  Continue Reading

• Holding the line in the world of hybrid work

  The role of line managers is evolving and changing as the shift towards hybrid working increases, and it would appear the secret to success in a hybrid context is to treat all staff members as if they were working remotely, even if they are based in...  Continue Reading

• What to look for when taking out a cyber insurance policy

  We look at the steps organisations need to take when buying cyber insurance  Continue Reading

• Ransomware and backup: Overcoming the challenges

  Ransomware attacks that exfiltrate data don’t nullify the value of backups to restore from, but the challenges – such as not restoring corrupted data – require careful planning  Continue Reading

• Retailers choose from menu of mobile apps to help reduce food waste

  Supermarkets, convenience stores and coffee shops are among the retailers connecting with mobile apps and tech firms to drive down the wastage of food  Continue Reading

• Embedded analytics emerges to offer new level of business intelligence

  Analytics suppliers are increasingly offering embedded analytics – based inside applications, often real-time, and driven by APIs – as a way to get to the next level of business intelligence  Continue Reading

• Cyber insurance: Tips for keeping the right level of cover

  Transferring risk to an insurer doesn’t mean you are risk-free – so what is not included in your cyber insurance cover?  Continue Reading

• Pandemic turns e-commerce doubters into believers

  Notable UK retail e-commerce avoiders Primark, B&M and Poundland are now online players. But what are their respective digital approaches?  Continue Reading

• Accountability in algorithmic injustice

  Computer Weekly looks at the growing number of injustices involving algorithms and automated decision-making, and what can be done to hold governments and companies accountable for the failures of computer systems they deploy  Continue Reading

• Olympique de Marseille scores with Orange 5G

  Robust communications in football stadiums is key to delivering optimal fan experiences and leading French team Olympique de Marseille has achieved connectivity in consumer and enterprise 5G  Continue Reading

• How IoT and digital twins could help CIOs meet ESG pledges

  Many local authorities have set ambitious net-zero targets. Can IoT technology, allied to digital twinning, help CIOs hit them?  Continue Reading

• Cyber insurance: What does a CISO need to know?

  We look at how the market for cyber insurance is evolving and how IT security chiefs can avoid buying the wrong level of cover  Continue Reading

• File, block and object: Storage fundamentals in the cloud era

  We look at the three basic ways that storage accesses data – via file, block and object – as well as the ways in which the rise of the cloud and distributed systems have brought changes to them  Continue Reading

• Tech sector efforts to root out forced labour are failing

  Digitally mapping supply chains to identify forced labour and slavery is no longer a technology problem for the IT sector, but a lack of government enforcement and corporate inaction are major barriers to effective change  Continue Reading

• Legislation and certification of XR applications: challenges to adoption and diffusion

  Virtual and augmented reality may be changing the game, but such cutting-edge applications run ahead of many regulatory issues. How can the metaverse avoid uncertainties that could slow the adoption of XR and related enabling technologies?  Continue Reading

• Backup maintenance: Five key points to consider

  Effective backups need to ensure all data is protected, and to track media and software changes. We look at five key things to consider  Continue Reading

• Composability set to be next big thing for digital experience platforms

  Digital experience platforms are the latest word in increasing customer loyalty by engaging across all channels. Gaining real-time views of customers while managing data compliantly is critical  Continue Reading

• CEA-Leti and the Silicon Valleys of Grenoble, France

  At the intersection of three valleys in the French Alps lies the city of Grenoble, a hotbed of microelectronics, where much of the innovation is fuelled by CEA-Leti  Continue Reading

• How to track greenhouse gas emissions

  Companies from a range of sectors, as well as public authorities, are using software and data analytics to track greenhouse gas emissions, partly to meet new regulatory demands  Continue Reading

• The cyber security impact of Operation Russia by Anonymous

  The campaign against the Russian government by Anonymous surprised many with the depth and scale of the cyber attacks. What can we learn from this online war?  Continue Reading

• Secure everything, not just the weakest link

  The rise in cyber attacks on supply chains has expanded the role of IT security chiefs and the complexity of keeping organisations secure  Continue Reading

• Global file systems: Hybrid cloud and follow-the-sun access

  We look at global distributed file systems that put enterprise data under a single file access namespace so that enterprises and branch offices can get to data from anywhere  Continue Reading

• What the world can learn from Saudi Arabia’s fight against industrial control system attacks

  Iran learned from attacks on its infrastructure and unleashed similar malware on Saudi Arabia. The world has now gained valuable lessons from the Saudi response  Continue Reading

• Challenges of securing a software supply chain

  The US president has issued an executive order to improve cyber security, which has ramifications across the software development supply chain  Continue Reading

• Data gravity: What is it and how to manage it

  Data gravity can attract increasing amounts of data, and brings with it onerous management overheads. We look at how to mitigate data gravity in datacentre and cloud  Continue Reading

• What the EU’s content-filtering rules could mean for UK tech

  EU proposals to clamp down on child sexual abuse material will have a material impact on the UK’s technology sector  Continue Reading

• Looking ahead: How to create a multi-year datacentre capacity plan

  Datacentres and cloud providers without a crystal ball can make educated guesses on future requirements to right-size resources and infrastructure  Continue Reading

• Retail’s IT talent search intensifies

  Retailers from different sectors are on the hunt to fill similar IT job roles, but are all finding different ways to source the sought-after talent  Continue Reading

• Unified file and object storage: Three suppliers and their approaches

  We look at unified file and object storage products from NetApp, Pure Storage and Scality, the differences, the workloads aimed at, and how unified they actually are  Continue Reading

• Tech’s ongoing mental health crisis

  The pandemic shone a light on the impact long hours and high pressure can have on the mental health of technology workers – an issue that is at risk of continuing long after Covid  Continue Reading

• AWS and startups: Using accelerator programmes to help enterprises address their pain points

  The early days of Amazon Web Services saw its public cloud technologies keenly adopted by the startup community. Now the company is continuing its support for this customer sector by rolling out its accelerator programmes  Continue Reading

• Cloud-to-cloud backup: When native cloud protection is not enough

  There is a certain amount of protection built into cloud services, but it has its limits and full data protection requires that cloud data is secured with cloud-to-cloud backup  Continue Reading

• Swedish entrepreneurs capture the world’s attention with eye-tracking technology

  A growing number of killer apps are driving the uptake of eye-tracking systems – and Sweden is positioned to play a leading role  Continue Reading

• A new design for the new world of work

  Widespread forecasts at the height of the pandemic about the death of the office have largely failed to come to pass, but its role is definitely changing as part of a wider, but as yet still mainly experimental, shift to hybrid working  Continue Reading

• Kubernetes backup products and 10 key players

  We look at 10 key players in Kubernetes backup, why they are needed, what they offer and why you need to watch out for duplication between application teams and the IT department  Continue Reading

• APAC buyer’s guide to backup and recovery software

  In this buyer’s guide, learn more about the market for backup and recovery software and key data protection capabilities to look for  Continue Reading

• IT departments need holistic circular economies to fight climate change

  With sustainability moving up the boardroom agenda, IT managers should revamp procurement strategies to align with the principles of the circular economy, but what does this mean for managing the IT lifecycle?  Continue Reading

• Four obstacles to hybrid cloud storage – and possible solutions

  We look at obstacles to hybrid cloud storage, such as complexity, a need for object storage, application suitability, and cost, with potential ways to mitigate the problems  Continue Reading

• The state of Australia’s national broadband network

  Australia’s national broadband network promises to improve broadband connectivity across the country but has been plagued by pricing issues. Here’s a look at where it is today and what lies ahead  Continue Reading

• Attack of the clones: the rise of identity theft on social media

  The proliferation of social media has resulted in the rise of identity theft on these platforms, with accounts copied for fraudulent or malicious purposes. What can be done to mitigate it?  Continue Reading

• Macs in the enterprise – what you need to know

  A guide to managing Apple Mac hardware and operating systems in the enterprise  Continue Reading

• Hydrogen’s promise: How fuel cells might power lower-carbon datacentres

  Could UK datacentre operators soon adopt emerging hydrogen technologies to reach expanding energy and emissions requirements?  Continue Reading

• Tech companies join UK four-day work week trial

  Computer Weekly speaks with tech companies taking part in the UK’s upcoming four-day work week trial, which will measure the impact of shorter working weeks on productivity, wellbeing and the environment  Continue Reading

• The rise of the always-on mobile user and implications for customer service and retention 

  The way we use our mobile phones and the level of service we expect have drastically changed. With mobile connectivity fundamental to businesses, problems are magnified for users and customer service teams alike  Continue Reading

• Evolution of unified comms services

  Post-pandemic ways of working are forcing organisations to rethink their comms – we look at the growth in cloud-based services to support hybrid working  Continue Reading

• The limits and risks of backup as ransomware protection

  Backups can provide a sound means of recovery from ransomware infection, but they are not 100% certain to foil attackers. We look at the limits and risks of depending on backups  Continue Reading

• CPaaS – a technology for the future

  There is a received wisdom that as businesses flock towards the cloud, they are looking for a single platform on which to manage all their communication needs, leading to boom times ahead for communications platform as a service  Continue Reading

• How to retain cyber talent in the Great Resignation

  The cyber security industry is experiencing alarming rates of resignations, leaving organisations vulnerable to cyber attacks. How can we better retain cyber talent?  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery is an essential service for EDF with Phenix-IT

  EDF has built disaster recovery tracking, planning and testing software on a six-month upgrade cycle based on governance, risk and compliance functionality in Mega’s Hopex platform  Continue Reading

• Will AWS pledge to extend life of servers inspire other cloud firms to follow suit?

  Amazon’s recent announcement to extend the useful life of its datacentre equipment has been deemed a positive decision for the cloud computing giant, but will other companies adopt this cost-saving and sustainability strategy?  Continue Reading

• Next generation of collaboration and communication services

  Future comms systems may look and feel rather different from what exists today – we look at the journey for communications services  Continue Reading

• Electric vehicle transition comes with uneven costs

  Governments, car makers and tech companies are promoting electric vehicles, but are they considering the uneven social and environmental costs from extracting the critical minerals needed to make batteries?  Continue Reading

• The importance of mid-band 5G for European economic growth

  The roll-out of 5G networks promises to revolutionise the role of high bandwidth wireless connectivity, but underestimating the role of mid-band spectrum could needlessly restrict its benefits  Continue Reading

• Growing prospects for edge datacentres

  Although the value that edge datacentres provide is not in question, for many companies, the journey to adoption is far from fixed  Continue Reading

• Interview: LF Energy on using open source to ready energy systems for phasing out fossil fuels

  With the climate crisis putting increasing pressure on countries to decarbonise their economies, the founder of open source championing LF Energy talks about digitising power networks to be ready for renewables  Continue Reading

• Snapshots vs backup: Use both for optimum RPOs

  We look at snapshots and backup, the key difference, their pros and cons and how best to use the two approaches in an integrated data protection strategy for optimal RPO  Continue Reading

• Positive benefits in the new experience economy

  While creating a positive employee experience (EX) has been on the agenda of companies for years, the concept – and that of the experience economy in general – has come of age in the Covid-defined working arena  Continue Reading

• Refugee support group works with tech startup on reporting system

  Computer Weekly speaks to a refugee support group about its ongoing collaboration with an academic tech startup to develop a digital human rights reporting system for refugees  Continue Reading

• How algorithmic automation could manage workers ethically

  Managing workers by algorithm and automated process has generated ethical problems aplenty. Can such means be pressed into the service for a more ethical mode of worker management? We find out  Continue Reading

• Using technology to reinvent stores

  Technology is becoming an important part of the shopping experience at home, in stores and in-between, so how are retailers using technology to advance the store experience?  Continue Reading

• Enterprises shore up supply chain resilience with data

  Using data to gain better visibility over their supply chains and forge closer connections between disparate links is helping organisations respond to disruptions faster  Continue Reading

• The role of infrastructure as code in edge datacentre computing

  As datacentre computing is pushed to the edge of the organisation’s network, IT has to address the overheads associated with remote server management  Continue Reading

• Storage requirements for AI, ML and analytics in 2022

  We look at what is needed for artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the pros and cons of block, file and object storage to store and access very large amounts of often unstructured data  Continue Reading

• Has Wi-Fi 6 stalled before it even got started?

  The need for wireless internet connectivity is more crucial than ever. Wi-Fi 6 and 6E were supposed to meet that need, but some say that uptake has stalled. We see what is happening in wireless  Continue Reading

• Snapshots best practice: Five key things you need to know

  We look at snapshots best practice, including the way they work, why they are not the same as backups, how to avoid heavy processing overheads and key user permissions tweaks  Continue Reading

• The time is now: Edge datacentres come of age

  After years of hype and speculation, could the post-pandemic period see a resurgence in interest in the build-out of edge datacentres and compute environments as enterprises look to dust off projects that Covid-19 forced them to shelve?  Continue Reading

• Backup types explained: Full, incremental, differential, synthetic

  We look at backup – on-prem and cloud – and the key variants available, from full backup to synthetic full, via incremental, differential, incremental forever and reverse incremental  Continue Reading

• Boots accelerates its digital accessibility journey

  Boots is working with website accessibility software provider Recite Me to make its website more user-friendly and improve the customer experience  Continue Reading

• Recruitment risks: Avoiding the dangers of fraudulent candidates

  Tech companies are seeing an increase in fraudulent job applications, with associated impacts on risk and cyber security. So how can organisations protect themselves from fraudulent applicants while ensuring they recruit the best talent?  Continue Reading

• Industry clouds are all the rage, but are they driven by marketing or customer need?

  Industry clouds – cloud applications designed for specific sectors – are fashionable staples of supplier marketing, but are they what corporate IT is demanding?  Continue Reading

• Why you need soft skills to excel in your tech career

  With deliberate practice you can hone your soft skills, increase the impact of your work and grow your influence in an organisation  Continue Reading

• Weighing up the nuclear option for powering datacentres

  Resourcing energy-hungry IT through the race to reduce carbon emissions means looking objectively at all the options, including nuclear power  Continue Reading

• Cloud ERP: Rise of the industry cloud

  There is a new variable in the build or buy debate, and it’s all about the way cloud-based services connect internal and external business processes  Continue Reading

• Storage suppliers put Kubernetes platforms centre stage

  How to orchestrate the orchestrator? Storage suppliers’ Kubernetes management platforms aim to meet storage and data protection challenge in containerised application environments  Continue Reading

• A waste of energy: Dealing with idle servers in the datacentre

  Servers can be the slackers of the datacentre, consuming power without doing much work. Why not whip them into shape?  Continue Reading

• Dynamic workforce planning gains ground in more turbulent economy

  Some organisations are developing dynamic workforce planning approaches to cope with increasing economic turbulence and change – the South Central Ambulance Service is one  Continue Reading

• How data analytics drives wind turbine power generation

  Data analytics and related software lies behind the burgeoning wind turbine industry, with predictive maintenance to the fore. We find out how  Continue Reading

• How can I avoid an exodus of cyber talent linked to stress and burnout?

  Cyber security professionals have played a crucial role during the pandemic, yet many feel like their employers aren’t providing adequate mental health support and have considered quitting their jobs as a result. What can employers do to help them?  Continue Reading

• Ratcheting down the tension in the hybrid world

  Employers who reject the trend towards adopting more flexible, hybrid ways of working may struggle with staff retention - and CIOs have more to win or lose than most in a hybrid world  Continue Reading

• Best-of-breed cloud ERP applications proffer a modern strategy

  How organisations are using best-of-breed SaaS products to fill gaps in their enterprise application strategy and deliver a modern approach to ERP  Continue Reading

• Cloud-era disaster recovery planning: Maintenance and continuous improvement

  In the final article in this four-part guide to disaster recovery planning, we look at how and when to update, maintain, audit, review and continually improve the DR plan  Continue Reading

• Datacentres and climate change: Operators accused of being all talk and no action on sustainability

  Datacentre operators talk a good fight when it comes to tackling climate change, but there is far more they should and could be doing to make their operations more sustainable, say experts  Continue Reading

• Five key points on file locking vs object locking

  We look at file vs object storage locking mechanisms, how different forms of storage ensure data consistency, and especially how object storage is tackling the challenge  Continue Reading

• Why some data-driven decisions are not to be trusted

  Companies often express the desire to be data-driven – but what if the data isn’t right? Data democratisation could be part of the solution  Continue Reading

• How APAC organisations can mitigate edge security threats

  The move to the edge expands an organisation’s attack surface. Here are some measures that organisations can take to minimise their edge security risks  Continue Reading

• Why post-pandemic reskilling must focus on mainframes

  A major contributing factor to UK-wide skills shortages is the significant number of people who have left the workforce since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic  Continue Reading

• Swedish researcher cuts through the hype around autonomous vehicles

  Linköping University’s Michael Felsberg makes realistic predictions about when self-driving cars will become available  Continue Reading

• English Channel surveillance used ‘to deter and punish migrants’

  Instead of opening safe and legal routes to the UK, the country’s border control ecosystem is deploying surveillance technologies in the English Channel to deter migrant crossings, it is claimed  Continue Reading

• Decarbonising datacentres: Turning the hot air about heat reuse into real-life use cases

  Reusing waste heat from datacentres to warm local businesses and homes could bring about considerable reductions in carbon emissions and lower energy costs, so what needs to happen to make this a more widespread practice?  Continue Reading

• Ship from store: A pandemic retail trend that’s here to stay?

  Shipping online orders from bricks and mortar stores looks set to be a pandemic trend that will stick around to form part of retail’s new normal  Continue Reading

• Software firm saves storage array costs with Nutanix hyper-converged

  Banking SaaS provider Vialink needed more IOPS when its NetApp arrays slowed up, but Nutanix hyper-converged proved a better package than Pure Storage and Dell EMC, too  Continue Reading

• Retailers get business-critical IT and data management in order

  Decathlon and Toolstation are among the retailers investing in new technology to support business-critical applications and better data management  Continue Reading

• A plan for technical and security training

  An array of options is available to help IT leaders refresh security skills or update tech skills. We look at how to decide what is best  Continue Reading

• Information in the metaverse is A Tale of Two Cities

  The metaverse will make it easier to access an increasing wealth of information, but it also will make it more difficult to distinguish real from fake, accurate from wrong – and that goes for information as well as the information sources themselves  Continue Reading