Always on

There are a multitude of emerging trends that have the potential to offer enterprises considerable cost savings, including cloud computing and collaboration technologies, but many firms are still failing to capitalize on these rewards. Poor planning and a lack of visibility into the infrastructure have hindered enterprises from integrating such solutions. By leveraging remote dba services and support, businesses can more effectively customize deployments to fit any unique needs and demands for reduced long-term spending and further, a competitive edge.

A recent study by Forrester revealed that despite continual efforts to minimize unnecessary IT costs, many firms miss out on savings each year by prematurely upgrading networking infrastructure and insufficiently considering maintenance contracts. Although 76 percent of decision-makers are concerned about these pressures to lower spending, many are actually unaware of the their options. Still, an overwhelming 80 percent of firms would leverage third-party maintenance if they found it to be more affordable than their current contract. Mike Sheldon, president and CEO of Network Hardware Resale, commented on the survey's findings.

"Businesses of all sizes need to know that there can be incredible value and cost savings with a reliable third-party maintenance service provider – helping to ease worries about tightening IT budgets without sacrificing quality," he stated.

In order to maximize value and ROI from the network infrastructure, Forrester Consulting advised that enterprises carefully scrutinize ongoing maintenance contracts. Additionally, the research firm stressed that metrics are key for measuring quality and longevity in regard to these solutions over time.

A seamless migration
One technological transition that can have a profoundly beneficial effect on the network is cloud computing. Computerworld reported that a hasty migration to the cloud can actually lead to higher costs and ineffective functionality, however. Casey Coleman, CIO for the General Services Administration (GSA), explained the importance of strategic cloud deployments.

"It is the case that it has to be well thought-out and methodical," Coleman said, according to the news source. "You have to plan for change management, promote user awareness, ensure cybersecurity in contractual terms, like with any IT project."

After moving to a cloud-based email system, the GSA was able to eliminate a large amount of unnecessary applications and consolidate workflows from the legacy email system, thus enabling the agency to turn off 300 in-house servers. Coleman revealed the GSA predicts it will save $16 million over five years as a result.

RDX offers a full suite of cloud migration and administrative services that can be tailored to meet any customer's needs. To learn more our full suite of cloud migration and support services, please visit our Cloud DBA Service page or contact us.

Big data analysis has come to play a major role in providing enterprises with a competitive advantage. However, many firms are still struggling to effectively manage and mine these large caches of information, which are only continuing to grow, integrating new sources and formats that complicate the process. As a result, businesses need to deploy the skills of database experts in efforts to fuel more accurate and efficient decision-making.

Network World reported that a recent panel discussion at Interop in Las Vegas discussed the immense potential opportunities that come with big data analysis. According to the news source, these initiatives enable companies to gain a new level of visibility into current operations and tailor products and services based on consumer trends. And as new data storage, analytics and visualization tools emerge, enterprises have the chance to understand this information more easily than before. Bruno Aziza, vice president of marketing for SiSense, explained that the market for big data has been growing, forcing more enterprises both small and large to take notice.

"Businesses are starting to take control of the issue and figure out how they can use it," Aziza said, according to Network World.

He noted that due to the expanding amount of data available to businesses and advanced platforms for handling it, firms of all sizes can capitalize on the benefits of these analytics.

Breaking down barriers
Enterprise Apps Today reported there are still obstacles to big data implementation, however. In order to move beyond these roadblocks, firms need to adapt to demands for new skills, develop a clear plan for these projects, achieve more synchronized strategies between IT and other departments and deploy the latest solutions for handling analysis. The source explained that by "reskilling," enterprises can better train IT teams to utilize new technologies as well as empower other areas of the company to apply these analytics. This is a complicated process, however, and may require remote dba services for support. Enterprise Apps Today pointed out that IT needs to understand how to handle sensor-derived or unstructured data, such as social media information and other external sources. Unstructured sources could include smartphone photos or GPS tracking data, and is often the most valuable for providing companies with insight into customers.

The real advantages of big data come with customization, however. With support and guidance, firms can automate unnecessary tasks and engage in new ways with customers using in-depth analytics and searches that are tailored to address specific issues or concerns.

RDX's business intelligence and big data experts assist customers in leveraging data contained in large data stores. For more information, please visit our Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics pages or contact us.

Due to the emergence of new mobile devices, the proliferation of cloud computing and other complexities contributing to the "Internet of Things," many enterprises have had to overhaul IT departments to meet new needs and objectives. However, a growing skills gap has left many firms unable to capitalize on the advantages of these IT trends. By leveraging remote dba services, enterprises can support effective database administration and ensure the analytical and operational benefits of these new solutions are realized.

According to research by TechServe Alliance, IT employment has grown 5.1 percent since April 2012 totaling 4,424,200 total jobs as of last month.

"I am pleased to see demand for IT professionals remains very strong," said TechServe Alliance CEO Mark Roberts. "With April's numbers, IT employment has grown for the 17th consecutive month hitting yet another all-time high. IT continues to handily outperform most other sectors with an annual growth rate of more than three times the growth rate of the general workforce."

Meeting new demands
But there are more factors that are driving complications in IT staffing. A Cisco study revealed that as businesses increase the number of new application rollouts, IT organizations face challenges to aligning network strategies to fulfill the requirements of the business. Cisco's research found that while 63 percent of IT professionals are confident in their ability to respond to business needs, almost one-third still cited very limited visibility into the company's initiatives. This lack of understanding has the potential  to greatly hinder any possible positive impact from new technology-related projects.

Survey participants ranked cloud readiness (29 percent) as the most important network initiative in the coming year, followed by "converging IT technology and operations technology" (28 percent) and data center consolidation and virtualization (27 percent). When asked about what main factors were slowing new application rollouts, most cited the budget, while 26 percent claimed data center infrastructure readiness was hindering these efforts.

"More than ever, IT has the potential to make a profound impact on the business – and opportunity to act as a strategic partner – by building a network architecture that can leverage multiple technology transitions," said Rob Soderbery, senior vice president and general manager for Cisco Enterprise Networking Group.

By working with a reputable IT services provider, enterprises can ready the network for bring-your-own-device (BYOD), cloud migration and any other trend that can promote a competitive advantage, all without the risk of business interruptions during the deployment process.

RDX is a leading provider of advanced remote database management and monitoring solutions. For more information about database administration and management, please visit our Services page or contact us.

According to recent research, cloud deployments continue to rise as enterprises finally grasp how these technologies can offer efficiency, agility and a leaner business model. As more companies embrace the cloud, however, realizing these benefits may depend on support from a third-party, such as dba services, for effective implementation.

SmallBusiness reported that in fact, 70 percent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a Fasthosts study said that cloud adoption will be a critical factor for growth over the next 12 months. Simon Yeoman, general manager of Fasthosts commented on the implications of the study's findings.

'"Many large enterprises have firmly established their cloud strategies but SMEs have up until now found the concept of cloud quite alien and therefore haven't integrated it into business operations," he said, according to the news source. "The results of this survey demonstrate that SMEs are starting to think seriously about the cloud and that they are taking important steps to use it to their business advantage."

When asked which aspect of business these companies felt the cloud would be most helpful in, 38 percent cited flexibility and scalability.

Agile adaption
A major reason that more firms have turned to a cloud model is that software-as-a-service (SaaS) has enabled companies of all sized and budgets to quickly integrate the latest technologies at an affordable rate. Business 2 Community contributor Sara Harold revealed that for many SMEs, SaaS has transformed the IT infrastructure, offering dramatic savings as well as more powerful computing. Harold noted that these factors allow firms to experiment with new IT concepts and tools and adapt to a rapidly changing business environment.

Another key driver of cloud initiatives is the transition from capital expenditures to only paying for operating costs. Harold explained that SaaS and the cloud offer low subscription-based payment models, so there are no technological obstacles or need for hefty investments in hardware, maintenance and upgrades. As an example, she pointed out that ten years ago enterprises had to buy multiple copies of virus protection software and constantly invest in new solutions as technologies became more advanced. However, now businesses can purchase a single-user license and scale this software up in the cloud as the business expands, addressing new risks and needs.

One of the most important aspects of the cloud is that it is easier and more cost-effective to adjust the technology based on actual company demands, which allows for smarter investments and budgeting as well as boosts the bottom line.

RDX offers a full suite of cloud migration and administrative services that can be tailored to meet any customer's needs. To learn more our full suite of cloud migration and support services, please visit our Cloud DBA Service page or contact us.

Cloud computing has brought a host of advantages for businesses that have become impossible to ignore, from decreased capital spending to enhanced collaboration. However, the true benefits of these technologies come with time, and therefore, a more extensive and strategic cloud plan, with remote database support, can potentially offer enterprises a more significant competitive edge in the long run. By applying these initiatives more holistically to all aspects of the organization, firms stand to gain more flexibility and productivity than ever before.

In a report for Forbes, Oracle Software Chief Thomas Kurian asserted that the rewards to cloud computing are different for users in various industries and departments. For example, he noted that professionals in HR, sales or financial sectors might hone in on the fact that the latest app updates are available more rapidly in the cloud while operational complexities are eliminated. Conversely, he explained that business decision-makers and executives are more focused on the functional aspects of cloud services. Kurian stressed that one of the reasons many enterprises have embraced the cloud is the inherent speed of adoption.

"Most people are really surprised at how fast they can go live with a deployment and then how quickly they can add and get new features up on it," he told Forbes.

A strategic journey
Kurian was adamant that cloud migration is not a one-time transformation, it is a continual exploration that can bring new efficiencies as deployment becomes more in-depth and sophisticated.

However, Daniela Gomes, a founder of the Brazilian Telecom Company Tellfree, explained to The Next Women that there have been challenges in her firm's cloud journey.

"When you migrate a service into the cloud and the functionalities keep the same, the process is transparent to the user," Gomes stated to the source. "However, in our case it hasn't been so because we have added new features to our communication services. And, as a result, the challenge was to introduce these new features to users (our employees), teach them how to use and implement the culture of using them – which is the most difficult part, as people in general are resistant to changes, mainly to new technology."

By utilizing dba services, businesses can ensure a more effective cloud transition with minimal interruptions or issues that could hinder ROI.

RDX offers a full suite of cloud migration and administrative services that can be tailored to meet any customer's needs. To learn more our full suite of cloud migration and support services, please visit our Cloud DBA Service page or contact us.

Business intelligence (BI) solutions have the potential to empower businesses in a multitude of ways by allowing professionals to mine extensive stores of information for enhanced insight. However, many firms still aren't fully leveraging these tools due to inadequate resources or expertise. However, by seeking the professional support of database experts and remote dba services, these enterprises can gain greater control over data analysis for a considerable competitive advantage.

Channelnomics reported that the BI market is set to grow 7 percent annually over the next four years, according to Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC). The research firm has determined that the BI market is in fact developing quicker than before, and is worth more than $42 billion in software and services. The strongest growth is expected to occur in advanced solutions such as predictive analytics. Philip Carnelley, research director at PAC, revealed that one of the biggest trends in BI is mobile technology, which gives users quicker access to reports on any device, from smartphones to tablets.

"Major obstacles can be seen among rapidly evolving technologies, requiring big efforts to keep pace and to acquire and maintain competency," Carnelley asserted, according to Channelnomics. "IT users need to move from one-stop shopping with ERP vendors to best of breed to get state-of-the-art solutions. New technologies may require significant product upgrades or architecture overhaul before they can be deployed."

New tools for changing objectives
As BI technologies evolve and become more complex, enterprises can leverage the assistance of third-party remote monitoring services. Carnelley explained that CIOs should partner with professionals that have expert knowledge and can guide BI projects, especially when adopting new solutions.

Information Management revealed that a related report from Saugatuck Technology also emphasized a shift in BI initiatives. The source explained that according to Saugatuck, firms are looking to harness more on-demand access to data and address challenges to the accessibility and delivery of analytics.

"I've never met any business or IT leader who complains about not having enough data. The complaints have always centered on how to find, access and effectively utilize the data available," said Saugatuck Analyst Bruce Guptill, according to Information Management. "We have practically unlimited data available, now we really need ways to manage it, quality-control it, secure it, cleanse it, etc."

Enterprises that seek support in these BI efforts have the opportunity to mine company data in new and innovative ways for more valuable conclusions.

RDX's business intelligence and big data experts assist customers in leveraging data contained in large data stores. For more information, please visit our Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics pages or contact us.

Business intelligence (BI) solutions have the potential to empower businesses in a multitude of ways by allowing professionals to mine extensive stores of information for enhanced insight. However, many firms still aren't fully leveraging these tools due to inadequate resources or expertise. However, by seeking the professional support of database experts and remote dba services, these enterprises can gain greater control over data analysis for a considerable competitive advantage.

Channelnomics reported that the BI market is set to grow 7 percent annually over the next four years, according to Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC). The research firm has determined that the BI market is in fact developing quicker than before, and is worth more than $42 billion in software and services. The strongest growth is expected to occur in advanced solutions such as predictive analytics. Philip Carnelley, research director at PAC, revealed that one of the biggest trends in BI is mobile technology, which gives users quicker access to reports on any device, from smartphones to tablets.

"Major obstacles can be seen among rapidly evolving technologies, requiring big efforts to keep pace and to acquire and maintain competency," Carnelley asserted, according to Channelnomics. "IT users need to move from one-stop shopping with ERP vendors to best of breed to get state-of-the-art solutions. New technologies may require significant product upgrades or architecture overhaul before they can be deployed."

New tools for changing objectives
As BI technologies evolve and become more complex, enterprises can leverage the assistance of third-party remote monitoring services. Carnelley explained that CIOs should partner with professionals that have expert knowledge and can guide BI projects, especially when adopting new solutions.

Information Management revealed that a related report from Saugatuck Technology also emphasized a shift in BI initiatives. The source explained that according to Saugatuck, firms are looking to harness more on-demand access to data and address challenges to the accessibility and delivery of analytics.

"I've never met any business or IT leader who complains about not having enough data. The complaints have always centered on how to find, access and effectively utilize the data available," said Saugatuck Analyst Bruce Guptill, according to Information Management. "We have practically unlimited data available, now we really need ways to manage it, quality-control it, secure it, cleanse it, etc."

Enterprises that seek support in these BI efforts have the opportunity to mine company data in new and innovative ways for more valuable conclusions.

RDX's business intelligence and big data experts assist customers in leveraging data contained in large data stores. For more information, please visit our Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics pages or contact us.

Enterprises of all sizes and sectors have invested significant time and funding into big data projects, but research has shown that many firms are disappointed with the results. Industry experts suggest that the problem lies in a lack of strategy and expertise. For these initiatives to be successful, firms need support from database experts as well as the most transparent analytics solutions that can integrate with existing business intelligence (BI) tools.

The Financial Times reported on a multitude of conflicting studies that have demonstrated big data successes and failures. Many of these initiatives show great promise, but the source noted that Accenture found only 22 percent of companies are satisfied with analytics programs and just 39 percent say their data is relevant to the business strategy. According to the source, Accenture attributed this to the fact that enterprises often measure too much data that doesn't matter as opposed to focusing on the information that does. In order to improve the outcome of big data projects, experts agree that enterprises need to invest in new capabilities and intensify the application of analytics. The Financial Times explained that, for instance, businesses can analyze information to answer questions such as how many customers have been lost in a given month. But to gain deeper insight into why they have left, and furthermore, predict when they might leave in the future, is something only big data can provide with proper tools and IT management.

A new approach
Big data can be especially useful because it incorporates external information, such as weather patterns or social media trends, with internal business data, like customer transactional histories. EWeek asserted that this capability has been offering enterprises an "odd reality": firms can find a new market, product or price level that was previously out of reach using intuition-based decision-making.

However, to achieve this, companies need to re-approach big data analysis. EWeek contributor Eric Lundquist revealed that asking a simple query over a large, real-time set of data is a more accurate and effective way to gain value from these projects than creating sophisticated algorithms for smaller samples.

This process can be applied to a number of indicators, including customer sentiment, weather forecasting, sports predictions or financial services. As long as firms take a new approach to business analytics, almost anything is possible.

RDX's business intelligence and big data experts assist customers in leveraging data contained in large data stores. For more information, please visit our Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics pages or contact us.

Effective business decision-making has come to depend on real-time access to business intelligence (BI) analytics, which offer firms deep insight into particular processes, customer behaviors or market trends. However, that capability has become a challenge in the face of ever-expanding big data, which many enterprises are looking to overcome. According to industry experts, in order to harness this information for meaningful application, firms need to take a more strategic approach with the support of robust BI solutions and database experts.

A series of reports recently released by Aberdeen studied how corporations are struggling with big data while the demand for fast access to analytics is rapidly accelerating. Nathaniel Rowe, an Aberdeen analyst, argued that firms need to delve more deeply into business metrics and customer desires. He recommended investing in real-time integration tools that can allow companies to rapidly incorporate raw data for analysis, thus fueling faster and higher quality decisions. Rowe revealed that organizations using these tools are able to deliver timely information 89 percent of the time, while this is only possible 73 percent of the time without such tools.

Rowe also suggested that evaluating supplementary integration technologies may be useful, especially since modern IT environments are constantly evolving and becoming more complex. Ideally, he asserted that enterprises should deploy a single skilled professional or team of such experts, such as DBA services, to meet big data needs. According to Rowe, organizations that do so are able to reduce integration costs while sustaining productivity.

Taking a unique approach
Wired contributor Doron Aspitz reported that the majority of legacy BI tools fail to efficiently and accurately interpret big data. Enterprises are bogged down by a multitude of reports, all of which break down data but don't offer actionable insight that can have any kind of impact or concrete results. To create ROI from BI solutions, Aspitz argued that firms need to deploy the most advanced tools and expert advise for analyzing information in a way that fits the business' specific domain. He explained that by doing this, companies can better understand what information specific to the industry is most valuable based on trends and patterns within the market. 

There is no one approach to harnessing big data that can work for all organizations. The most effective BI solutions and experts can not only interpret large stores of data, but also provide context around the information for more relevant events and a more holistic understanding.

RDX's business intelligence and big data experts assist customers in leveraging data contained in large data stores. For more information, please visit our Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics pages or contact us.

Inarguably, the data center has been transforming as enterprises look to adopt new technologies for a competitive edge, such as cloud computing and bring-your-own-device policies, while also mining large volumes of big data. As the IT environment becomes more complicated, firms are requiring database experts and administrators to aid in managing these challenges.

Andrew Hillier, the CTO and co-founder of CiRBA, told ITWorld that traditionally, databases were run using a combination of internal corporate knowledge around historical issues, device-specific analytics and process performance analytics. Now, though, enterprises are looking to manage data centers as a whole. Hillier explained that new technologies have allowed firms to manage these components as a single entity for improved analytics and enhanced insight into information. This is especially true, he noted, for organizations that are migrating from a conventional computing environment to a private cloud infrastructure. As a result of this shift, Hillier revealed that people can gain a deeper comprehension of monitoring and analytics tools as data centers become more centrally controlled. However, this integrated approach to database management also brings a need for technical expertise, according to Hillier. For example, businesses working to manage virtualized hardware will need to leverage remote database support in order to understand CPU utilization and capacity planning.

The value of DBAs
Enterprise Apps Today reported that according to Bert Scalzo, database domain expert for Quest Software, big data has completely changed the role that the database administrator (DBA) plays in many corporations. He asserted that the DBA's role has become more important because may companies are accumulating terabytes and petabytes of data due to inexpensive cloud storage capabilities.

"It's not that the number of DBAs is decreasing, but the amount of data that companies are keeping is increasing exponentially with the same amount of resources," Scalzo explained to the source.

Gwen Shapira, senior database administrator at data infrastructure management company Pythian, also reportedly believed that there is a considerable opportunity for DBAs to address big data obstacles.

"A few years ago, executives only noticed the database when it stopped working," Shapira said, according to Enterprise Apps Today. "Now they are looking at the database and they think of all the information it holds as an opportunity: How can we get more value out of the information we have here? What other information can we collect to support our decision making?"

Harnessing big data will likely continue to drive a need for expert knowledge and new solutions, such as those provided by DBA services.

RDX is a leading provider of advanced remote database management and monitoring solutions. For more information about database administration and management, please visit our Services page or contact us.