Network and Communication

Many companies are enduring a recovery from recession that can best be described as tentative. They may not regard it as the best time to be investing money and management time in privacy protection. In fact, the opposite is the case. The business imperatives for building and maintaining the walls that will prevent data breaches have never been so urgent. Not only are the legal requirements to maintain data security – and sanctions in the event of failure – higher than ever, customers increasingly regard the protection of their data as a differentiator between businesses with whom they choose to work with and those they don’t. All this must be done at a time when the amount of work being done by employees outside the traditional confines of the office is growing rapidly. This development makes the task of preserving data confidentiality exponentially more difficult.

Every day sees another headline that illustrates how data protection has been ignored, resulting in vital data that has been exposed or lost. There’s no denying that the loss of mobile devices is a key culprit. The Metropolitan Police states that in the UK alone 10,000 handsets are reported stolen each month. And it’s likely that this potential risk will only escalate given that smartphone adoption is set for rapid growth over the next three years. Indeed, a 2009 report predicts that smartphones will double their share of the handset market to 20 percent by 2013¹. Here, Stephen Davies, UK Product Manager for Vodafone Mobile Exchange, shares his thoughts on how enterprises can avoid such pitfalls.

NOT BIG ENOUGH FOR VIRTUALIZATION? THINK AGAIN! Survey shows SMBs reap the same benefits as the enterprise, including reduced costs, improved reliability and disaster recovery, and a measurable ROI.

Even amidst the enforced frugality of a recession, some expenditures are worthwhile. For the cost-conscious IT departments of small and midsize businesses (SMBs), refreshing server hardware is one of those things. Deploying up-to-date server hardware delivers benefits that far outweigh the total cost of ownership. Yet as SMBs plan their upgrade path, they must also prepare for the budgetary and technical issues that may arise in order to maximize their return on investment. A recent survey of 116 IT decision makers in SMBs by IDG Research Services taken in January 2010 examines these issues and suggests ways to address them

From increased IT efficiency to disaster recovery and cost savings, virtualization has lots to offer small- and medium-size businesses