Peter Near, national director, systems engineering, VMware Canada | Solving for cost and performance complexity: Just-in-Time VDI May 26, 2017 by Mary Allen First generation virtual desktop had much to recommend it. Centralized management, resource sharing to improve infrastructure utilization, and a cost effective desktop delivery alternative to dedicated PCs were some of the benefits associated with VDI introduced in the early 2000. But despite these advantages, broad adoption outside a few select segments was hampered by poor performance, and issues with scale and cost. Next generation VDI is changing this. As VMware’s Peter Near argued, shifts in the data centre backend have made “virtual desktop incredibly cost effective and incredibly performant.” To learn more about how backend technologies – flash storage and hyperconvered appliances – and how cloud-based, on-demand virtual desktop have shifted the VDI mobile work value proposition, read more. | General Data Protection Regulation: from the EU with love May 23, 2017 by Lynn Greiner Increasing in frequency and impact, data breaches have become the stuff of daily news. At the same time, businesses are developing new use cases for the exploitation of personal data and the IT industry, new means to collect it. In the EU, who owns the data, and who is responsible for its protection in what way just became more clear with introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation. But if it’s the EU, it doesn’t impact us, right? As Lynn Greiner explains, it ain’t necessarily so. The ostridge approach to privacy legislation will have a short shelf life: stricter provisions in the DGPR that will come into force in 2018 will affect many businesses beyond EU borders. To learn how and who’s affected read more. | The Greater Toronto Area – still good for data centres May 25, 2017 by Don Sheppard In Canadian data centre circles, Montreal has garnered a lot of attention. Cheap, renewable and reliable hydro power delivered by Hydro Quebec has attracted several of the global cloud providers, who have set up shop in la belle province. Microsoft, for example, and AWS most recently, have established data centre facilities in Quebec, allowing these providers to also address local concerns around data sovereignty. Can the Greater Toronto Area compete, and on what basis? While energy pricing continues to challenge businesses in Ontario, Don Sheppard take a broader view of the factors that provide input into data centre siting by looking into DuPont Fabros Technology’s recent decision to launch Canadian operations in the GTA. For a view into white space prospects in the GTA, read more. | Christina Hoy, VP, Corporate Business Information and Analytics Division, Workplace Safety & Insurance Board | Analytics and operations need to find common ground May 29, 2017 by Denise Deveau At this year’s Chief Data and Analytics Officer Conference in Toronto, progress over the past several decades in the use of large data sets and algorithms was acknowledged: “Accelerated innovation and the move to open source mean we have significant advancement in capabilities,” noted conference chair and senior director, Rogers customer intelligence, Chris Dingle. However, challenges remain around how these new capabilities are being operationalized in many organizations. As VP, product marketing for Information Builders Jake Freivald explained, “We provide the data and tools to let people make their own decisions; but operational people have very different ideas of what is happening. That’s a big gap for many corporations.” To learn more about how the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board is addressing gaps through the integration of IT and IM, read here. | About InsightaaS The Insighter is a bi-weekly e-newsletter that, like its parent website InsightaaS, is dedicated to exploring "the 'why' in enterprise technology." Our enews offers unique and depth perspective on Analytics, Cloud, Data Centre, IT Management (including security), The Internet of Things, and Vitamin Y, a concise view of industry trends and events. If you are interested in staying current with our research, featured content and editorial coverage in these areas, click on any of the articles in this e-newsletter. If you are interested in a steady stream of thought leadership, click on the link below and we'll subscribe you! If you'd rather not hear from us again, just use this link: Unsubscribe from The Insighter by clicking here. We look forward to sharing Insights with you in the months to come! Subscribe to The Insighter by clicking here. | |