Izenda Embedded Analytics and Technology Blog

Feb 09
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The Risks and Hidden Benefits of Dark Data

By | BI Innovation, Big Data, Business, Customer Success, For Developers, IT and Engineering, Technology, The Cloud

The “dark Web” – the Wild West of underground Internet sites – has received a lot of attention and notoriety of late. But many people may not have heard of “dark data.” Practices regarding dark data have prompted a lot of discussion in data management circles.

Gartner originally coined the term. Condensed here, the definition of dark data is “the information assets organizations collect, process and store during regular business activities, but generally fail to use for other purposes.”

Organizations often retain dark data for compliance purposes. “Storing and securing data typically incurs more expense (and sometimes greater risk) than value,” Gartner writes. Read More

Nov 14
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The Hybrid Cloud: Why It Is Expected to Continue to Grow

By | Technology, The Cloud

Hybrid cloud IT solution diagramSecurity experts far and wide cry loudly any time there is a suggestion about using cloud services for anything but the most routine of tasks. Hacking is a concern about which many are rightfully concerned.

Yet neither can anyone deny how convenient the cloud is, and how it can increase productivity. That is why a compromise — the hybrid cloud — is continuing to make inroads in the enterprise.

The Hybrid Cloud: What is It?

The hybrid cloud is much more than spinning up a server with a connection to Amazon Web Services and calling it hybrid. The hybrid cloud allows both public and private clouds to remain separate from each other. Read More

Nov 07
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Microsoft Announces G-Series, Cloud Space and Cloudera

By | Microsoft, Technology, The Cloud

Big news coming out of Redmond (by way of San Francisco) as Microsoft announces a host of new technology to play with in the upcoming months. Here are a few of the highlights.

G-Series Virtual Machine Sizes

One of the big announcements was the new sizes of virtual machine sizes that are coming out. Microsoft is calling these devices the G-Series and is claiming enhanced performance for “your most demanding applications.” They are upping the stakes by providing a variety of choices in processor cores, ram, and Solid State storage.

The smallest of the group, called the G1, starts out with 2 cores, 28 gigs of ram and 406 Gigs of SSD storage. The list is topped with the G5 that has a whopping 32 cores, 448 gigs of ram and over six terabytes of storage.

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Aug 11
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Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2014

By | Microsoft, The Cloud

July 2014’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington DC had some great advice from Microsoft partners on their strategies – and the challenges they face – in delivering .NET, cloud-based computing services.

First, the challenges. There is the perpetual challenge of getting customers already invested in hardware and software to be proactive in moving off of their existing platforms. Customers tend to be happy with the solution they have, and don’t always see the value in changing technology.

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Oct 21
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Microsoft Predicts Three Strengths Will Ensure It Dominates the Enterprise Cloud

By | Business, Microsoft, The Cloud

Earlier this month, Microsoft cloud and enterprise executive VP Satya Nadella argued that the company will dominate a fair share of the $2 trillion cloud market. The company will prove a cloud powerhouse, he wrote in a blog post, due to several specific strengths, rounded up by InformationWeek:

Microsoft is prepared to lead the enterprise cloud charge, which he characterized as a potential $2 trillion market, because of three strengths: a strong SaaS portfolio that includes Office 365, Bing, Xbox Live and more than 200 others; a massive public cloud in Windows Azure; and a viable hybrid model that provides businesses the tools and infrastructure to explore the cloud while still keeping data secure and extending the use of existing hardware. He said Microsoft is the only cloud provider that can boast these assets and that its new wave of products represent significant advancements across all areas.

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Sep 25
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Microsoft’s Next Moves: Make or Break Time

By | IT and Engineering, Microsoft, The Cloud

Office365A series of takeaways from a recent Microsoft financial analysts’ meeting — the first in two years — reveals what’s ahead for the company. If they’re smart, it’ll be a focus on the enterprise and cloud services.

Last week, Microsoft executives had their first financial analysis meeting in two years, and used it to explain more of the plan for the future of the company. They also hit on many of the topics the media and tech insiders have been speculating about lately. InformationWeek published 11 Takeaways from this meeting on Microsoft’s next moves, and in that spirit, we culled it down to the two biggest takeaways we see from the larger list: the enterprise market and the cloud.

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Sep 19
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What’s Changing the Enterprise? The Power of Analytics

By | Business, For Developers, IT and Engineering, The Cloud

Bubble chart data graphWhat major trends are changing the nature of the enterprise environment?

This question is constantly floated among technologists and industry experts, always looking ahead to what the workplace will look like in the next year, five years, and so on. Ars Technica recently made its definitive list, including:

  1. Moving mobile beyond the poor PC substitute
  2. The transformation of the “app”
  3. The social enterprise
  4. The IT department as integrator

We recently discussed the changing role of IT on the blog, and the other points listed are hot topics that come up often in tech industry speculation. The merits and reasoning behind each are sound.

Which do you think will have the biggest impact on the enterprise?

Predicting the future is hard, especially when you have an installed base to consider. But it’s not hard to identify the economic, technological, and cultural forces that are converging right now to shape the future of enterprise IT in the short term. We’re not entering a “post-PC” era in IT—we’re entering an era where the device we use to access applications and information is almost irrelevant. Nearly everything we do as employees or customers will be instrumented, analyzed, and aggregated.

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Sep 17
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The Cloud is Changing IT – and the Skills You Need

By | Business, IT and Engineering, The Cloud

A few weeks ago we debated whether or not there’s still a place for the Chief Technology Officer in the increasingly cloud-based workplace universe. At the very least, his role will change significantly.

But that isn’t a bad thing, and in fact, as anyone who is in IT already knows, the department and its role within the enterprise is constantly evolving. So similarly to the CIO’s changing purpose, worries, and responsibilities, those of the larger IT department are changing yet again to adjust to the plethora of cloud services. Cloud services shift management of server workloads and other traditional IT responsibilities onto these outside vendors and third parties “who already have the skills to manage complex infrastructures at a cheaper price than paying for in-house IT department employees.”  On the surface, this might leave IT professionals fearful for their jobs.

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Jun 24
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In 10 Years, Cloud Computing Will Be Long Forgotten

By | Business, IT and Engineering, The Cloud

Cloud Computing: A Thing of the Past?

Yes, in ten years, we will hardly ever mention “the Cloud” and all related buzzwords surrounding cloud computing.

Notice what I am not saying: that cloud computing will go away.

Cloud with a power buttonCloud computing will simply have been ingrained in the technology we use, and will cease to become a meaningful term for technologists. We’ll all be cloud computing pros, in enterprise and consumer fields alike. Says a recent article:

“Cloud computing in ten years will have gone off in various directions, all systemic to how we handle enterprise computing in the future.”

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Jun 20
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The Great Shift to SaaS, for Consumer and Enterprise Alike

By | Business, For Developers, IT and Engineering, Microsoft, The Cloud

The Shift to SaaS

Maybe you’ve noticed the shift. If you haven’t yet, give it a year or so and you’ll definitely be seeing it (and probably experiencing it firsthand).

SaaS which stand for Software as a ServiceWe’re entering the SaaS era. Software as a Service (SaaS) structure allows you access to software and its functionality remotely, which you pay for with a monthly subscription fee and access via the web. You pay less overall for full use of the software, saving on licensing fees, while the company over time gets a sustainable revenue stream, rather than one-time payments every few years. This is how it is supposed to work, in theory.

SaaS has been an ideal model for the enterprise software industry for awhile already. We offer it for our partners and customers, as do many others. But it’s been making a big splash in the world of home consumer electronics and home and professional software recently, with the conversion of two giants: Adobe and Microsoft.

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