1. Opinion

    PanelCast 2019 Predictions: How Public Cloud Costs Are Driving Organizations to On-Prem and Back

    Presently, it seems that cloud run costs/subscriptions can easily exceed on-premises costs for general workloads beyond small systems. Do you see this changing moving forward, and how soon? [su_note note_color="#e1f2ed"]This blog post was created following ActualTech Media's inaugural PanelCast ev… Read More

    By Scott D. Lowe
  2. Opinion

    PanelCast 2019 Predictions: The Evolution from Alignment to Digital Transformation and Going Beyond Hardware Buys

    IT needs to meet all the needs of the business, but the business isn’t always interested in buying more stuff – tools, software, platforms, hardware, storage, networking, etc. How does the business forge ahead without IT just continuing to buy? [su_note note_color="#e1f2ed"]This blog post was c… Read More

    By Scott D. Lowe
  3. Opinion

    Ransomware Goes Local As Governments, Infrastructure, Port Authorities Take a Hit

    In the age of cyber warfare, holding up banks and taking hostages are relics of the pre-digital heists of the past. The target for this new generation of criminals is data; holding a company or organization to ransom electronically is becoming the go-to tactic. After the city of Atlanta found its… Read More

    By Caroline Seymour
  4. Opinion

    A Microsoft Teams vs. Slack Update: Three Weeks In

    A lot of people commented on my original article detailing why my company, ActualTech Media, made the jump away from Slack to Microsoft Teams. Now that we’re at the three-week point, it’s becoming clear where we’re seeing benefits and where there are challenges that we hope Microsoft addresses… Read More

    By Scott D. Lowe
  5. Opinion

    Putting Things in Context: Why We’re Ditching Slack for Microsoft Teams

    I don’t often write about the inner workings of ActualTech Media. It’s not because I don’t want to, but is due primarily to having a whole lot to stay on top of. But we’re doing something that many may think crazy, so I thought I’d tell the world! We’ve ditched Slack and adopted Micro… Read More

    By Scott D. Lowe
  6. Opinion

    On Women’s Equality Day, Five Women in Tech Leaders Share Their Insights

    This Sunday, Aug. 26, is Women’s Equality Day, which commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1878, granting women the right to vote. In 1971, the U.S. Congress designated August 26 as Women’s Equality Day. Since then, women have made great strides in breaking i… Read More

    By Keith Ward
  7. Opinion

    13 Things You Need To Do at VMworld 2018

    It’s August and you know what that means! VMworld is here. Since 2004, VMworld has been the preeminent conference for many a virtualization admin, and 2018 is no exception. Of course, over the years, we’ve seen constant change and constant adaptation as purveyors of all things virtual continuall… Read More

    By Scott D. Lowe
  8. Opinion

    How Digital Transformation Is Like a Diet

    I don’t like to bring too much personal baggage to my writing and this may be a little corny, but one of my current undertakings has some real-world parallels to a modern technology-centric business trend, so here I go… Big Change Requires Big Commitment As so many know, losing weight is reall… Read More

    By Scott D. Lowe
  9. Opinion

    How To Become an NSX Expert in 72 Hours

    My journey toward NSXpertise started with a Tweet: “So, if I had 72 hours to go from 0 to NSX expert, where would I start?” Despite what the “Learn C++ in 24 hours” books of old would have you believe, a long weekend is not enough time to gain more than a passing knowledge of a topic.… Read More

    By Cody Bunch
  10. Opinion

    5 Things to Look for Before Diving In With an Azure Stack Vendor

    When someone tells me I can have it all, it’s usually too good to be true. Yet, that’s exactly what Microsoft is delivering to cloud customers with its popular Microsoft Azure Stack cloud platform. Microsoft Azure Stack is a hybrid cloud platform that enables you to deliver Azure-consistent s… Read More

    By Paul Miller
  11. Opinion

    Top 5 Tips for VDI Success

    Last week, ActualTech Media hosted the VDI and End-User Computing EcoCast (which you can still watch On Demand here). The purpose of the event was to discuss the latest innovations in End User Computing and hear from some manufacturers of products that can make deploying VDI solutions more straightf… Read More

    By James D. Green
  12. Opinion

    What If Domino’s Stopped Making Pizzas: Jettison the Technology Hyperbole to Achieve Better Alignment

    What if Domino’s stopped making pizzas this very minute?  What would happen?  If you answered, “well, they’d go out of business” then you already have a grasp on why one of today’s favorite phrases should be jettisoned from your business phrasebook. Every so often in the technology wo… Read More

    By Scott D. Lowe
  13. Opinion

    Countdown to the GDPR Deadline: Preparing for Compliance

    It’s nearly May 25: Do you know where your data is? If you don’t, the consequences could be severe. On that date, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will go into effect, a regulation that was designed to protect an individual’s personal data. With the compliance deadline upo… Read More

    By Scott D. Lowe
  14. Opinion

    Seamlessly Manage Your Hybrid Cloud Environment

    Across datacenters worldwide, cloud conversations have changed dramatically over the last few years. Five years ago, the only way organizations could start new projects quickly or instantly deploy applications was to leverage the public cloud. While this offered many benefits, it also created some n… Read More

    By Gary Thome
  15. Opinion

    How Hyperconverged Infrastructure Aids Disaster Recovery

    From hurricanes to flooding, earthquakes to wildfires, 2017 was a memorable year for widespread natural disasters. Yet when you ask some IT professionals about a disaster recovery plan for their companies, many seem unconcerned or woefully unprepared. Studies show that unless the odds of a natural d… Read More

    By Jesse St. Laurent
  16. Opinion

    Tech Industry Professionals Share Their Views and Tips on Data Privacy Day

    This Sunday marks the 11th anniversary of Data Privacy Day, which was created to raise awareness and promote the protection of personal privacy and data. The occasion first started in 2008 as an extension of European Data Protection day, which started in 1981 with the signing of Convention 108, the… Read More

    By Scott D. Lowe
  17. Opinion

    Cloud Computing Boosts Server Sales

    Contrary to popular perception in the IT industry, server sales are not dying out: in fact, they’re experiencing a growth spurt. And the type of growth says a lot about where we may be headed in the near- and long-term. Gartner Inc. recently released its worldwide server revenue tracker, showin… Read More

    By Keith Ward
  18. Opinion

    How hyperconverged efficiency allows IT teams to trim resources without sacrificing quality

    World renowned consultant, educator, and author Peter Drucker said, “Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.” When it comes to IT operational efficiency, doing things right means streamlining IT. By doing so, IT organizations can save time and expenses –… Read More

    By Scott D. Lowe
  19. Opinion

    Spartans and Servers and Storage, Oh My!

    In 480 B.C., during the Greco-Persian wars, the famous Battle of Thermopylae took place between the invading Persian Empire led by king Xerxes and an alliance of Greek city-states led by Leonidas of Sparta. You may remember Leonidas and this battle from the movie "300." The battle was notable and… Read More

    By James D. Green
  20. Opinion

    Intent-Based Networking is a Logical Next Step for SDN

    For years, many have been talking about the future of IT in terms of software, prefixing every resource with “software-defined” as a way to help end users understand that emerging products are different than their predecessors in some fundamental ways.  A lot of jokes have been launched as this… Read More

    By Scott D. Lowe
  21. Opinion

    Backup and Recovery in the Cloud: Simplification is Actually Really Hard

    Still doing all of your backup and recovery locally?  “To the cloud” will be the rallying cry that you hear from, well, pretty much everyone these days.  After all, it’s super easy to retarget your backups at the cloud and drink all of that sweet, sweet unlimited storage capacity and never h… Read More

    By Scott D. Lowe