3 Agile Strategies to Future Proof Your Organization lily.lopate_dRm5 Fri, 04/05/2024 - 17:07 “If there was something that could guarantee that you would not suffer a breach, everybody in this room would have it,” said Christopher Fielder, field technology officer at Arctic Wolf. But it doesn’t exist right now — at least, not yet. Which is why Fielder urged IT leaders to stop treating a breach as a failure and use it instead as a chance to get better. “The only failure is if you’ve been breached a second time through the same means, because that means you haven’t learned ..read more

The Tools Businesses Use to Help with Application Modernization Bob.Keaveney_u64t Wed, 03/27/2024 - 09:43 It’s the kind of application that, once you start using it, makes it hard to remember how things used to be. Paychex Flex, as the platform is called, is designed to help businesses handle the daily challenges that come with human resources management. “Anything from hire to retire,” explains Chad Lown, director of infrastructure at Paychex, the company responsible for the software. “Payroll, time and attendance, insurance benefits and 401(k)s: It’s an all-in-one solution for everything HR ..read more

How Small Businesses Can Get Started with AI mol.doak_zH4F Thu, 01/04/2024 - 16:35 Small and midsized businesses can benefit greatly from artificial intelligence-powered tools. As noted by Forbes, 91 percent of SMBs that have implemented AI say it has made their business more successful. But survey data also revealed that just a quarter of smaller companies have invested in AI. While 46 percent say they want to start using it soon, there’s a disconnect between the potential benefits of AI and how SMBs can practically deploy these tools in day-to-day operations. I’m often asked by small busine ..read more

Why the Cloud Is Critical to Modern Applications in Retail lily.lopate_dRm5 Tue, 02/27/2024 - 13:26 The use of applications in retail has reached an all-time high. Experts predict that 2024 will see retail apps being used more than ever, almost as much as navigation and weather apps. But here’s the challenge: How can retailers modernize their apps efficiently? Traditionally, most retailers updated their applications inside their data centers. The data generated by these applications was typically very dispersed, and the applications themselves usually were not well integrated. That’s an ..read more

What Is Security as Code? mary.winters Tue, 02/13/2024 - 10:53 Cybersecurity remains a top priority for enterprises worldwide. Organizations are increasing their cyber budgets in 2024 at a higher rate than they did last year, according to PwC. And for good reason: Businesses face an expanded attack surface from the proliferation of Internet of Things devices, an ever-growing global ransomware threat and challenges with identity management, among other risks that CISOs are anticipating this year. But there are also cybersecurity measures that businesses can take to keep their data more secure ..read more

How Businesses Can Get Started with AI mol.doak_zH4F Thu, 01/04/2024 - 16:35 Small and midsized businesses can benefit greatly from artificial intelligence-powered tools. As noted by Forbes, 91 percent of SMBs that have implemented AI say it has made their business more successful. But survey data also revealed that just a quarter of smaller companies have invested in AI. While 46 percent say they want to start using it soon, there’s a disconnect between the potential benefits of AI and how SMBs can practically deploy these tools in day-to-day operations. I’m often asked by small business lea ..read more

How FinOps Can Help Businesses Optimize Cloud Costs mol.doak_zH4F Fri, 12/01/2023 - 15:29 Cloud uses for business continue to grow. By 2024, Gartner predicts, more than 45 percent of “IT spending on system infrastructure, infrastructure software, application software and business process outsourcing will shift from traditional solutions to cloud.” But the more enterprises shift spending to the cloud, the more they must manage costs. That’s why experts recommend FinOps a financial operations practice that helps teams take control of cloud usage, is beginning to emerge.  Over 60 percent of ..read more

Platform Engineering: The Next Evolution of DevOps mary.winters Mon, 11/20/2023 - 16:25 Not long ago, says Neil Wylie, chief architect for platform engineering at CDW, organizations often took a “monolithic” approach to solving their problems. That is, business and IT leaders would look for vendor solutions that were essentially a perfect fit for their environments. “Over time industry has realized, that is unlikely to happen,” says Wylie. “Often, companies would end up making concessions to fit a product, rather than finding a product that would be the best fit for their environment. People ..read more

How Infrastructure as Code Is Evolving Platform Engineering mol.doak_zH4F Fri, 11/17/2023 - 14:26 Platform engineering is evolving the principles of DevOps, a methodology that breaks down the silos of IT operations and software development so organizations can deliver applications more quickly. In fact, 68 percent of organizations that have used platform engineering report that it improved their development velocity, according to a January report from configuration software maker Puppet. “DevOps is a methodology for delivering applications and code, and platform engineering is like a strategy ..read more

Modern Platform Engineering: How DevSecOps Enables More Secure Software Development mol.doak_zH4F Tue, 11/14/2023 - 15:51 Security is a key consideration when it comes to platform engineering, which is the next step in the evolution of DevOps. Platform engineering is a discipline for designing, building and maintaining software development tools. It removes friction from the developer experience, says Jim Mercer, research vice president for DevOps and DevSecOps at IDC. A survey by Puppet found that 42 percent of organizations using platform engineering saw “a great deal” of improvement i ..read more