New Ransomware Targets Critical Infrastructure in 2020

Article | February 24, 2020

In my discussions with clients about their journey to cloud, it’s becoming evident that many of them are viewing cloud as a goal, instead of looking at cloud deployments as a capability. In some cases, line-of-business owners are under corporate pressures to “adopt” a cloud-first strategy. A recent Forrester Consulting study commissioned by IBM, “The Key To Enterprise Hybrid Multicloud Strategy”[1] suggests that “75% [of 350 surveyed global decision makers] have received pushback while advocating for strategies outside of cloud environments.” The result of this, unfortunately, is the lack of continued investment on their on-premises (“on-prem”) environments. From my experience, this type of deployment focus may not yield the expected results. We shouldn’t think about problem solving as “To cloud or not to cloud?” Instead, we should ask ourselves, “What is the problem I’m trying to solve?” and “Are cloud deployments (public or private) going to optimize my solution?”

Article | February 24, 2020

Today, news broke that GitHub and its parent company Microsoft, acquired npm and its public repository of open source JavaScript packages. In 2018 when Microsoft acquired Github, many in the developer community had a cautious, even emotional response. Given today’s announcement that GitHub is acquiring npm -- the same concerns are likely to surface again since JavaScript is one of the world’s most popular programming languages and since the commons of the global JavaScript community reside within the fabric of npm.

Article | February 24, 2020

Cloud computing has completely changed the way we do business—and despite common misconceptions, the impact goes way beyond where files are stored. Sales teams can access customer relationship management (CRM) solutions from anywhere in the world, thanks to software as a service (SaaS). SaaS solutions also drive some of today’s most important customer interactions. At the same time, IT departments are under pressure to offer secure storage, lightning fast networking, and fast computing capabilities. There’s an increasing shift to “as a service” consumption models, and there’s a newer option to consider: “pay as you go.” Here’s what you need to consider as you navigate the evolving landscape of IT strategy.

Article | February 24, 2020

From time to time, we invite industry thought leaders to share their opinions and insights on current technology trends on the IBM Systems IT Infrastructure blog. The opinions in these posts are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of IBM. Gartner forecasts worldwide public cloud revenue will grow 17 percent in 2020[1]. While it’s clear that cloud is still being rapidly adopted, on premises and private cloud are growing as well. My team and I see this on a daily basis as we visit with enterprise clients. To quantify this information and measure its impact, IBM recently commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate how organizations develop and implement their IT infrastructure strategies. Forrester conducted an online survey of 350 global enterprise IT decision makers across industries to explore this topic.