CloudTag Archive

Even with the gradual increase in cybersecurity literacy amongst the masses, there are still some myths that people follow religiously, even Cybersecurity professionals. I will set out to bust some of those myths here. Many of the myths have come from companies advertising products as a “silver bullet” solution, some… Continue Reading Cybersecurity Myths – my password use does not matter

I have posted a few articles about different security standards and frameworks, such as PCI-DSS, The Essential 8, ISO27001, NIST and others – and in my experience, there are some organisations that focus on compliance instead of security. People desperately chase the dogma of maturity levels or complying with every… Continue Reading Focus on Compliance or Security?

Many organisations will have had on-premises datacentres or computer rooms, or have had their own servers and infrastructure in co-lo or hosted datacentres. Whilst these systems may have served a company’s needs in the past, it is often more complex and unknown systems that are the last to be evolved… Continue Reading Replacing old Infrastructure – a step by step guide

I was at a networking event where a new contact was telling me about her challenges in selecting a cloud platform for their major expansion. The issue she was experiencing was to decide between two cloud services that were offering significant discounts and included services for the migration and implementation.… Continue Reading A cloud discount is not always a saving

Organisations often run head-long into digital transformation, with a focus on technology and toolsets, and not fully understanding the impact on staff. Digital transformation is more than just moving all paper processes into electronic versions of themselves, more than just running out some new collaborative tools or enabling legacy applications… Continue Reading Digital Transformation and People

With the use of Software as a Service offerings increasing, with 99% of businesses projected to use one or more SaaS solutions in an industry that is worth $165Bn a year. There are 15,529 companies providing SaaS solutions , and so it seems like a logical choice to start using… Continue Reading Risks of SaaS

If you work in IT, then you will know that there is the ever-present spectre of zombie systems, which remain active and running, but not actually doing anything. These can be servers that were implemented for a project that got cancelled, file shares that are no longer accessed, databases that… Continue Reading What is a Scream Test

2020 has not started well, particularly in Australia with bushfires, floods and now Coronavirus. It is undeniable that life and culture will be changed forever by the lockdown of business and society caused by the global pandemic that has gripped the whole world. The short, medium and long term effects… Continue Reading How Covid-19 may change business and IT

It may feel like the ability to work from home makes home isolation possible to do remote working during Covid, but it is not all perfect… Recent events in 2019/2020 have shown the demand for people to self-isolate or quarantine themselves to reduce the spread of Coronavirus or COVID-19, and… Continue Reading Home isolation – is remote working the saviour?

I have been involved in the drive for Digital Transformation for many businesses over the last few years, and time and again I see the spectre of misunderstandings appearing. The truth is, Digital Transformation is about process and people, not technology. Here are some of the biggest errors; Digital Transformation… Continue Reading Digital Transformation is about process and people, not technology

Even though public cloud is mainstream, and more businesses are going “all in”. They are going for a multi-cloud, hybrid or blended cloud – yet there are still many misunderstandings in those who have not started, and many cloud myths persist. For businesses that are early on their journey to… Continue Reading Misunderstandings of Cloud

The problem with backups Legacy approaches to backup in the IT industry are largely focussed on performing a backup of an entire server. This means that multiple backups will contain a full copy of the Windows operating system, and other files that will never need to be restored. Follow this… Continue Reading Backup for cloud

Skills evaporation is a blight that affects many businesses, particularly monolithic large businesses and governments. Skills evaporation will happen when good people leave a business to pursue better opportunities, taking knowledge with them – but also the culture of the remaining people is that their skills are reduced by the… Continue Reading Skills evaporation

How much does it cost to manage your data? In an early job, I was making a projection to purchase more disk to expand capacity on our Exchange mailbox servers. At the time, disk was relatively expensive, and the capacity that I had projected for 3 years would have also… Continue Reading Save Money – by buying more disk

Through my study of AWS and Azure, I have found that one challenge is in understanding the terminology difference, particularly as my own background is in VMware technologies. So, I have created this little chart that compares the three.Obviously, there is no direct one-to-one mapping of the product offerings, but… Continue Reading Azure Vs. AWS terminology

Microsoft used to have a realy great approach to product naming – think of Windows, Outlook, Word, Exchange, etc. – but recently, their naming imagination has disappeared into a confusing mess of extended terminology, which to make things even harder, Microsoft have been changing frequently. Wouldn’t you like some of… Continue Reading Office 365 terminology clarified

Are you retaining a backup for 10+ years? Can you still use the data? How useful are your backups? A necessary burden Backups are a necessary task for all businesses. A hundred years ago, if there was a fire at a business, then everything would be lost – a paper… Continue Reading How useful are your backups?

The role of the IT department has changed, and modern IT functions need to re-invent themselves to maintain their relevance and role within the modern enterprise. The changing IT department is moving from the nerds in the basement to real business partners. The Changing Face of the the IT Department… Continue Reading The changing face of the IT department