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Processor Article, “Time To Re-evaluate SaaS Solutions? Assess Your Software Needs Before Taking The Plunge”

A “Tech & Trends” feature from the August 13, 2010 issue:

Recently David Cearley, vice president and fellow at Gartner gave a presentation discussing SOA and application development and integration, and he said something that on its face seemed almost sacrilegious in this age of outsourcing applications and cloud computing services.

According to Cearley, SaaS (software as a service) will have a role in the future of the data center, but perhaps not the dominant role originally envisioned by many prognosticators. His reasoning for this stems from the fact that many bad practices that have plagued on-premises software paradigm are happening similarly in the SaaS world. For example, “shelfware,” where a given subscription to a SaaS solution is not being accessed by its intended end user, is a problem. “It [can] happen to any company, especially those that have downsized their workforce, or one that has oversubscribed to trigger a volume discount,” Cearley said.

Cearley’s assertion that organizations need to re-evaluate the rationale for using SaaS solutions is primarily a recommendation that enterprises must apply best practices for evaluating solutions for their data centers, regardless of their delivery model.

Complete Article: Time To Re-evaluate SaaS Solutions? Assess Your Software Needs Before Taking The Plunge

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2010 08 27 Robyn Weisman Articles
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Processor Article, “Cable Organization & Management: Though Easily Overlooked, Cables Are Integral To A Well-Organized Data Center”

A “Cover Focus” feature from the August 13, 2010 issue:

Cables in the data center lend themselves to a variety of fairly unflattering analogies. “The stuff piles up like books on a coffee table,” says Rudy Rangel, sales manager at IT equipment vendor Rackmount Solutions (www.rackmountsolutions.net). “It takes discipline to organize them, but it’s easier said than done.”

Unlike those books, however, haphazard cables are, at best, a nuisance and, at worst, a danger. “Mismanagement of cables can lead to significant lost revenue from unnecessary downtime,” says Nick Schmidt, senior manager of IT infrastructure at CDW (www.cdw.com). “Cable management is the foundation for space maximization, overall performance, safety, and cooling efficiency.”

Putting together an organization and management plan for your cabling infrastructure is tedious and takes a lot of work, particularly if you’ve inherited several nests of tangled, lint-covered wiring from your predecessor. Block out some time during your business’ off-hours and put together a plan that keeps some of the following tips in mind.

Complete Article: Cable Organization & Management: Though Easily Overlooked, Cables Are Integral To A Well-Organized Data Center

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2010 08 25 Robyn Weisman Articles
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Processor Article, “A Burst Of Capacity: Cloudbursting Gives SMEs Extra Computing Power When It’s Needed Most”

A “Tech In-Depth” article from the August 13, 2010 issue:

Provisioning resources has always been a challenge for most data centers. Spikes in traffic can range from something basic, such as a retail site that knows it will face more online traffic around the holiday buying season, to something more sudden and extreme, such as the Web traffic that no doubt hit the New Orleans Saints’ Web site when the team won the Super Bowl.

Traditionally, planning for these variances in traffic required IT departments to estimate future traffic needs, which often translated into having to buy more infrastructure than was often needed for daily use. Cloud computing services improved this situation to some degree, but enterprises still needed to secure and pay for more “cloud” than they typically needed.

Recently, however, the term “cloudbursting” has become a popular concept in cloud circles. “Cloudbursting is the ability to increase internal capacity by provisioning resources for the overflowing capacity on a different cloud,” says Guy Naor, CTO of cloud solutions provider Morph Labs (www.mor.ph).

Complete Article: A Burst Of Capacity: Cloudbursting Gives SMEs Extra Computing Power When It’s Needed Most

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2010 08 23 Robyn Weisman Articles
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Processor Article, “Intelligent Web Filtering: FutureSoft’s DynaComm i:filter Efficiently & Effectively Monitors Online Activity”

A “Featured Product” article from the July 30, 2010 issue:

Houston, Texas,-based networking and security solutions provider FutureSoft understood the importance of filtering network traffic back when SME IT departments had their hands full with the Anna Kournikova virus back in 2001. The company’s DynaComm i:filter product has been so successful in monitoring online activity that Microsoft bought the technology from the company in 2006 to incorporate it into its Threat Management Gateway offering.

However, FutureSoft (www.futuresoft.com) retained the rights both to upgrade and modify i:filter and to sell it as a standalone product, says Tim Farrell, CEO of FutureSoft. “We provide and maintain the data stream that is being fed to Microsoft. We are their verification arm for guaranteeing a Web site’s validity,” he says.

Complete Article: Intelligent Web Filtering: FutureSoft’s DynaComm i:filter Efficiently & Effectively Monitors Online Activity

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2010 08 20 Robyn Weisman Articles
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Law.com Case Study, “Dechert Trades Help Desk for Keno Kozie”

Posted on the Legal Technology Section of Law.com, on June 22, 2010, this legal IT case study shows how Dechert LLP outsourced its help desk needs to Keno Kozie saving the firm money and improving its productivity overall.

Before deciding on Keno Kozie, [Dechert CIO Mike] Shannon and a few Dechert colleagues went to Chicago to visit Keno Kozie’s facilities. “We didn’t want to get sold on a sales pitch [but] on real analysts supporting real law firm applications like Autonomy’s iManage and Sage’s Carpe Diem. We asked them to give us three analysts so we could ask each of them sample help desk calls, such as, ‘How do you do this in [iManage]?’ or ‘How do you style this Word document?’ Then we chose three random analysts, which made [Keno Kozie] a bit nervous, but they did fabulously, too,” Shannon says.

Shannon says that the analysts’ expertise in all the applications Dechert uses sold Shannon’s team on Keno Kozie’s capabilities. “My level-two help desk manager can trip up some good analysts, but he had a hard time tripping up [the Keno Kozie analysts],” Shannon says.

According to Shannon, Keno Kozie hires analysts with ample experience either working in law firms or supporting them and then provides them with in-depth, hands-on instruction from professional application trainers. In addition, Keno Kozie analysts get more specialized training whenever they join a specific client team and as applications and technologies evolve.

For example, all of Keno Kozie’s analysts either have Microsoft Office Specialist Certification or are in the process of getting their certification. “There are so many nuances in Word with regards to tables, formatting, and so forth that it’s difficult to learn them all,” says Shannon. “The [analysts] at Keno Kozie understand the specific way Dechert styles its documents, and Keno Kozie analysts are expert with the use of styles and know our specific needs.”

Shannon says it helps that Keno Kozie is a full-service law firm support organization that includes engineering staff, Citrix specialists, document management experts, and advanced applications support. “Keno Kozie has a depth of legal technology experience that cannot be easily found in other support organizations. When complex calls come into the help desk, the support analysts have extensive resources and experts that they can consult with or bring onto the call in support of users,” Shannon says.

Complete Article: Dechert Trades Help Desk for Keno Kozie

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2010 07 29 Robyn Weisman Articles
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