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In recent years, organisations have come to recognise digital transformation as a long-term investment. According to Forrester, executives believe that by 2020 as much as 50% of their revenue will be driven by digital changes to their businesses. Companies large and small are quickly realising that if they do not transform – they will soon lag behind. The pace of innovation over the past few decades has been staggering and is only set to increase, with IDC predicting that worldwide spending on the technologies and services that enable digital transformation will reach almost $2 trillion by 2022. Over the years, the endless opportunities and promises which technology affords us, has become well known among IT decision-makers, and many businesses are welcoming with open arms. New technologies have proven essential in driving business growth, improving customer experience and increasing efficiency. Technologies which were once labelled ‘emerging’, such as the cloud, connected…

Once you expand into a hybrid cloud environment, connectivity becomes even more critical. And finding that perfect connectivity solution can help you reduce latency and performance issues while providing a more consistent network experience. That extra effort will be well worth it, as the right solution could also be more cost-effective — especially for businesses that are transferring large amounts of data between networks (compared to the public Internet, for example). Of course, your connectivity options will depend on traffic volumes and patterns, which could be different from site to site within a single network, so it’s good to explore what’s out there. Your line-up of connectivity solutions Many companies rely on SLA-based MPLS networks to provide dedicated connectivity. This offers you more predictable performance (a must for digital-first businesses) and higher security than using the Internet alone. Another option is hybrid WAN, which allows you to use both private…

You now have the cloud, but what is your migration strategy? So you’ve chosen to move to the cloud, but you still have some decisions to make. For starters, which cloud migration options make the most sense for which workloads? And how do you decide on the best approach based on your existing infrastructure, future business needs, and your budget? Here are six application migration strategies — ‘The 6 Rs’ — to help make your decision and unlock even more value from the cloud: Rehost: Many businesses start their cloud migration with rehosting — often referred to as ‘lift and shift’ — where you move your existing workloads and applications to the cloud. If you’re under time constraints or need to migrate legacy workloads, this might be your best option. While it doesn’t unlock all of the cloud’s benefits, such as elasticity, it paves the way for future optimization and…

You’ve likely heard many benefits of the cloud as you start developing new digital transformation strategies. But being able to use cloud most effectively to meet these business goals is a whole other challenge — especially when you’re already maxed out and the daily to-do list is filled to the brim. Don’t worry – with some advance planning and cloud deployment tips, you can get a head start in optimizing your cloud. Here are eight ways to keep moving in the right direction and ensure success in the cloud: 1. Define success. It may go without saying, but if you want to get the most from any cloud computing platform, you first need to define what business process you’re looking to transform. Whether you need to overhaul process, streamline infrastructure, adopt new manufacturing systems, integrate AI and machine learning, or completely rethink how your audience interacts with your brand, your…

Thanks to commoditized cloud offerings such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, organizations can easily link their public cloud to their on-premises data center. But the migration process can be architecturally complex and time-consuming to manage, not to mention costly when putting the right talent in place. That’s why we’re seeing a lot of organizations opting for a managed cloud solution, which allows them to offload the responsibilities of migration and management (and even brokering the entire infrastructure) to a cloud partner. So why should you consider a managed approach over a DIY solution? For many, it comes down to costs. Managed cloud is designed to scale with your business – that means you pay for management services only when your cloud services are active. Without a doubt, that’s a strong draw for most organizations, but it’s certainly not the only one. Azure and AWS allow you to take…

In today’s competitive landscape, most businesses are in the midst of some form of digital transformation initiative. With growing data volumes and more applications distributed across data centers and cloud environments than ever before, industry-leading technologies such as software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) have emerged as the next generation of networking solutions. However, it seems, amongst UK businesses there is a cloud of confusion and a lack of understanding around the implementation of the technology. In an industry characterized by rapid change, SD-WAN technologies play a pivotal role in wider digital transformation programmes, empowering thousands of businesses and providing them with the agility they need to stay ahead of the competition. Yet, it manifests, that many businesses are overwhelmed by this new technology and are not fully reaping the rewards that SD-WAN has to offer. According to a new study conducted by Cogeco Peer 1, UK businesses are suffering from…