Data Management

Google Denies Killing Donkey on Street View Expedition
January 17, 2013

Google seems to have had a dustup with a donkey -- literally. Images plucked from Google Street View have raised questions about whether a Google Street View car ran over a donkey in the African nation of Botswana. Images culled from Street View show a donkey lying in the road. One of the images also shows dust hovering over the donkey, possibly suggestive of a recent tumble.

Letting the Customer Experience Drive Innovation
January 14, 2013

By acting as a performance center of excellence, American International Group's Global Performance Architecture Group has improved performance of the company's services to deliver better experiences and payoffs for businesses and end users alike. The group looks at the user experience and tailors the company's technology to maximize customer satisfaction and utility.

Bringing Order to Data Backup Chaos
January 07, 2013

Enterprise backup is broken, but there are methods being developed to fix it. Nowadays, methods for backing up and protecting enterprise data are fragmented, complex and inefficient. However, some new approaches are helping to simplify the process, keep costs in check, and improve recovery speed and confidence.

Feds' Data Center Reduction Requires Spending Now to Save Later
December 28, 2012

How much do federal agencies need to spend on data center consolidation investments now, in order to save money later? It could be quite a lot. The U.S. Department of Labor, for example, figures that $60 million or so will do the trick in meeting its data center consolidation goals.

Federal Agencies to Slash Number of Data Centers
December 19, 2012

The U.S. government's program to consolidate federal data centers presents an opportunity for improving IT management that goes well beyond the objective of just trying to tidy up data center operations and save a little money. As a result of the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, the number of government data centers will shrink sharply from its current level of about 3,000 centers to about 1,800.

Stallman and Ubuntu: Sticks and Stones and a Blogosphere Brawl
December 17, 2012

It was only a few weeks ago that the Linux blogosphere's Punchy Penguin Saloon suffered its latest round of damage thanks to the recent skirmish over the GPL, but now the popular establishment of questionable repute is actually shut down for a week for repairs. The cause this time? Yet another blogosphere brawl, needless to say, focusing this time on Ubuntu and its newly installed "surveillance code."

Whip Your Files Into Shape in Windows 8
December 13, 2012

There are three big changes in Windows 8, the latest version of Microsoft's operating system. All three affect how you organize your computer. First, Microsoft replaces its Start menu search box with a new, always accessible Search charm. Second, the Windows Explorer file browser gains ribbon functions like previewing and archiving.

Getting Over Big Data Fatigue in the C Suite
December 08, 2012

Recently while presenting the findings of a Big Data survey to an executive team, I was a bit taken aback when the CEO stopped me and said, "I'll listen to what you learned from the survey as long as you don't use those two words again -- 'Big Data' -- I've already told my team there will be hell to pay if one more person tells me, 'we ought take a look at what Big Data can do for us,' that may be the last suggestion they make at the company."

C Spire Gets Into the Shared-Data Game
December 06, 2012

C Spire Wireless is joining AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless in offering a shared data plan for its wireless service. This lets customers bundle all of their mobile devices on one plan. In general, I like the idea, but shared data plans aren't for everyone. All of these plans are similar, but there are important differences. This is a new way of thinking about wireless data and many customers like it.

Swiss IT Guy Goes Rogue With US, UK Intelligence Data
December 04, 2012

American and British intelligence agencies on Tuesday were warned by the NDB, Switzerland's federal intelligence service, that some shared information related to counterterrorism had been stolen. Last summer, an NDB IT technician reportedly downloaded terabytes of data that had been shared between the NDB, the CIA and Britain's MI6. The man may have looked to sell it.

iTunes Expands to India, Russia, 54 Other Countries
December 04, 2012

The iTunes store has opened up in Russia and a slew of other countries that were previously left off its coverage map. The 56-country expansion nearly doubles the number of countries in which iTunes is now available. Turkey, India and South Africa were also part of the launch, which Apple says will feature local and international music targeted at specific audiences.

Amazon Launches 'Profoundly Disruptive' Data Warehouse
November 29, 2012

Amazon Web Services on Wednesday launched RedShift, an on-demand data warehouse service that is optimized for the analysis of huge sets of data. RedShift is "profoundly disruptive," said Merv Adrian, research vice president of information management at Gartner. Its success will move the economic boundary between on-premises and cloud usage and "data will seek its lowest-cost home more rapidly than before."

Google Puts Huge Files in Gmail/Drive's Cargo Bay
November 28, 2012

Google is integrating its Google Drive cloud storage service with Gmail, letting users send files 400 times larger than previously allowed. Gmail now will send links to files up to 10 GB stored on Google Drive from inside the Gmail interface. Google also put privacy protections in place for the new feature.

What Mitt Romney Could Have Learned from EMC's Joe Tucci
November 19, 2012

We've had a couple of weeks to think about the election outcome, and both sides are positioning the results around the issues. This has become so divisive that there is a significant move by Texas to exit the United States and become a country. I've spent some time looking at this, and the real reason the Republicans lost is that the Democrats made better use of data analytics.

AMD ARMs for Data Center Brawl
November 06, 2012

The success of ARM-based processors in mobile phones and tablets has had a tectonic effect across numerous IT markets, but one of their most intriguing opportunities is in data centers. It seems contradictory that a CPU architecture designed for power efficiency and lightweight applications would be considered for compute-intensive environments.

Dotcom Suits Up for Another Round in File-Sharing Wars
November 01, 2012

Alleged digital pirate and German Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom on Thursday announced plans for Mega, a service that would replace his shut down file-sharing website Megaupload. The new Mega -- besides dropping a few letters form the name of the service -- will reportedly avoid any dealings with the United States.

Feds Find Email Encryption Can Backfire
October 26, 2012

How big is the U.S. government? It's big enough that federal agencies transmit 1.89 billion email messages every day -- an average of 47.3 million daily emails per agency. How confident are the agencies about protecting the sensitive content of those messages? In a recent survey, federal email managers and IT security experts expressed mixed views about email protection.

Compete Swallows Hard to Settle FTC Privacy Charges
October 23, 2012

Compete has agreed to settle FTC charges that it used its Web-tracking software to collect personal data without disclosing the extent of its information-gathering activities, and failed to honor promises it made to protect the personal data it collected. Under the settlement, Compete must obtain consumers' express consent before collecting any data.

Google Razzle Dazzles With Data Center Display
October 17, 2012

Google on Wednesday threw open the doors of its Lenoir, N.C. data center to the public, posting a virtual tour of the facility on Street View. Meanwhile, a detailed story about the facility by author Stephen Levy, who toured the data center by invitation, has been published.

IBM Ratchets Up Power for the Enterprise
October 13, 2012

In commercial IT, "enterprise systems" have long been defined as the technologies that provide large organizations the highest levels of compute performance and critical attributes such as reliability, availability and scalability. But enterprise IT infrastructures have never been about technology alone.