Enterprise IT
Why Reskilling is Critical in a Post-Pandemic World
The world is changing at a rapid speed as new regulations come into play, customer expectations change, and global competition grows – and that’s without considering how COVID-19 is compelling everyone to use digital technology rather than physical processes when they can. As the pandemic forces organisations to put digital transformation on steroids, it is important that they don’t allow their workforces to fall behind. The silver lining amid the devastation of COVID-19 is a new working model. Yet business leaders are asking their people to show extraordinary levels of resilience and flexibility as we all try to come to grips with the changing environment. People and organisations accustomed to face-to-face interaction and manual processes have needed to master digital tools in double-qui...
Why Technology is Key to Maintaining Business Continuity during the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced almost all businesses to change their working practices and priorities in a matter of weeks, with the findings from the 2020 Internet of Things (IoT) Spotlight report showing that 71% of SA adopters increased the pace of IoT projects during this time. Adopters clearly believe IoT was vital to keep them going: 88% said the technology was key to maintaining business continuity during the pandemic. As a result, the majority of adopters (91%) now view the integration of IoT devices with workers as a higher priority and 83% of SA businesses considering this technology agree the pandemic will accelerate their adoption of it. IoT is key to improving business performance in South Africa The Vodafone Business research findings are clear: IoT continues to generate va...
Unpacking Intelligent Infrastructure in the Modern Data Centre
As the world’s largest IT companies realise the importance of ‘intelligent infrastructure’ in the modern data centre, the race is on between storage competitors to provide products and solutions that are actually truly intelligent, and not merely standard infrastructure. So says Marcel Fouché, Networking and Storage General Manager at value-added distributor Networks Unlimited Africa, which partners in South Africa with Tintri, a provider of intelligent infrastructure for virtualised and non-virtualised enterprise IT environments. He clarifies, “In order to get to grips with this challenging issue, Tintri recently held a free webcast to unpack the differences between intelligent and standard infrastructure, looking at the topic from the perspectives of the customer, the vendor and th...
Data Protection in an Evolving Threat Landscape
Sourced from CSO. Information Technology (IT) has become simpler and more complex. This is best described with the cloud making it easier to consume while adding challenges of massive data growth, increased siloes and growing numbers of workloads. In addition, ransomware and malware attacks are a very valid concern. Data protection needs to be modernised to meet changing needs, simplified to mitigate complexity, and flexible to adapt to a changing world. Above all, data needs to be consolidated to provide an all-encompassing view it as a strategic business asset, moving beyond backups to data management. In a data-driven world the impact of a disaster is magnified With the emergence and growth of cloud technologies, data outages have become far less frequent. However, the impact of an outa...
NZ Stock Exchange DDoS Attacks Remind Enterprises to Check Defence Security
Risna Steenkamp, General Manager: ESM Division at Networks Unlimited Africa At the end of August, a series of cyberattacks on the New Zealand Stock Exchange over five consecutive days forced it to halt trading for a number of hours for four out of those five days. The attacks raised questions about the stock exchange’s security, as well as the threat actors’ underlying motives. “This was a series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) incidents, in which threat actors disrupted the normal traffic to the enterprise by overwhelming the target with a flood of internet traffic at volumes that the system just couldn’t handle,” explains Risna Steenkamp, General Manager: ESM at value-added distributor Networks Unlimited Africa. “In financial services terms, the New Zealand Stock Exchange is a re...
How CIOs can Help Build Revenue Post Pandemic
Amid a historic global economic slowdown and societal crisis, CIOs can show their mettle and drive their organisations to a more prosperous future by practising the skills and embodying the attitudes that mark out all great leaders. The first stage in achieving that goal will be to act fast to reset cost bases as even relatively small expenses come under extreme financial scrutiny. Today, every IT investment needs TCO written through it like a stick of rock and CIOs need to go the extra mile to calibrate the value of the investments they recommend. In short, more than ever they need to lead as digital transformation and adoption of new technologies become existential issues of survival and critical factors to overall success. Of course, a large part of being a CIO has always been about cos...
Is Tech Adoption the Key to Rebuilding the Economy?
As the initial shock of the coronavirus pandemic subsides, South Africa’s small business leaders must now pick themselves up and begin to rebuild. For many businesses, working remotely and with reduced staff has been incredibly challenging, but technology has played a fundamental role in allowing work to continue. One positive to come from this crisis is that lockdown compelled businesses to adopt more advanced technologies than they may otherwise have considered. Many businesses have spent months focusing on the immediate term and making decisions necessary for their survival. As government restrictions loosen and the community begins to consider medium- and long-term priorities, this is the perfect time to reconsider the technology you use and how it will help you to reach your goals. In...
HPE Finalises Acquisition of Silver Peak
Sourced from Silicon Angle Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has completed the acquisition of Silver Peak, an SD-WAN company, in a transaction valued at $925 million. Silver Peak will become a part of Aruba, an HPE company. The acquisition is intended to strengthen Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform), helping to advance enterprise cloud transformation with a comprehensive edge-to-cloud networking solution covering all aspects of wired, wireless local area networking (LAN) and wide-area networking (WAN). “WAN transformation is a key component of HPE’s Intelligent Edge and edge-to-cloud vision and growth strategy,” says Antonio Neri, president and CEO of HPE. “Armed with a comprehensive SD-WAN portfolio with the addition of Silver Peak, we will accelerate the delivery of a true distributed clo...
Continuous Intelligence: The Newest Trend in Data Analysis
Continuous intelligence (CI) provides organisations across industry sectors with a more effective way of conducting data analysis. Being able to do so at greater scale, with higher volumes, and in near real-time will ensure their data will deliver even more business value. CI refers to the design pattern in which real-time analytics are integrated within the workflow of the business, analysing current and past data to suggest actions in response to events. Think of it as automating data analysis on a large scale. Gartner predicts that by 2022, more than half of major new business systems will incorporate CI using real-time contextual data to improve decisions. In basic terms, this enables organisation to improve the cycle time of its data to derive continuous business benefit from it. Furt...
Altaro Endpoint Backup Brings MSPs Relief during Pandemic
Risna Steenkamp, General Manager: ESM Division at Networks Unlimited Africa Managed service providers (MSPs) know that even though they may try to enforce group policies to store data only on their network or in the cloud, end users often store some files locally on their laptops and PCs. Wherever it may reside, the fact is that data can also be lost or damaged due to physical disasters, loss, theft or cyberattacks. And so, with more employees than ever working remotely, there has never been a greater need to make sure that offsite resources are regularly backed up. Altaro, a leader in backup solutions for MSPs, IT resellers and IT departments, has designed a solution to simplify backup for an organisation’s on-premises and roaming Windows desktops and laptops. Its solutions are distribute...
ProLabs Enables Campus Network Upgrades to Facilitate Online Learning
A number of key South African universities have reported good progress with online learning for their students since the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the country’s lockdown situation. This is encouraging, as it means the wheels of learning are able to continue turning, but it also brings serious issues around data and bandwidth provision. So says Marcel Fouché, networking and storage general manager at value-added distributor, Networks Unlimited Africa. He explains, “Before the pandemic, growing data consumption meant that the demand for bandwidth had already resulted in a race between consumers’ appetites and providers’ best efforts to supply it. Today, as the world moves ever more swiftly into remote working and learning, the implications for bandwidth are more critical than ever.” “Uni...
Harnessing the Power of Cloud Computing in Kenya
Sourced from InfoWorld. The topic of cloud computing has been doing the rounds for quite some time now, and businesses have been flooded with information promoting and supporting the use of cloud technology. With so much information out there about ‘the cloud’, it may take some time to fully wrap our heads around the implications of connecting to the cloud. What does cloud technology mean for Kenya and Africa, and how can we leverage these services to adapt and thrive in a digital world? The potential benefits of mass cloud adoption across Africa The benefits offered by cloud computing will differ within each individual business based on their unique needs. However, the underlying advantages boil down to the same three points: strategic value, flexibility and efficiency. Having access to c...
