Many IT organisations today are outsourcing (either internally or externally) their services to meet their unique business needs, lower the cost of services, or simply drive innovation. Some of them are transitioning from a single vendor outsourcing model to a multi-sourced operating model, which is ultimately leading to an extraordinary increase of complexity in managing multiple suppliers.

The realm of Shadow IT

Cloud apps are in use everywhere, including within the enterprise. When a staff member has access to so many apps that make their life easier as a public consumer, they come to expect the same levels of service within their place of work. When the IT department can’t deliver on that level of service, the user finds another way.

VMware’s VSAN, as a solution, has many virtues. However, with the wide range of HCL-compliant hardware and software configurations there are bound to be some problems. One of these is described in VMware KB 2135494 - which is specific to running VSAN on Dell servers with the PERC H730 storage controller. It primarily describes the recommended I/O controller driver and firmware combination to avoid drive failure states.

As I've been considering the role Service Management will play in the future of IT, I've been doing a lot of reading around DevOps in an effort to understand how adopting DevOps can significantly improve IT delivery. While DevOps core adoption is typically around web applications, it can also be used to improve the delivery experience on existing 'monolithic' legacy applications.

Last week Adam Dodds, New Zealand's IDC Research Manager published an interesting note highlighting the ongoing uptake of cloud services - NZ CIO's have the keys to the cloud. While the growth highlighted will not be news to industry participants, the insights may be.