As the state of the UK economy improves, many organisations will begin to look to their IT in the quest for a competitive edge. Over the past decade, and prior to the global recession, the investment banking sector looked to “more, faster, better” IT as a way to gain an advantage over the competition. Not any more. We look at how the playing field has changed for large organisations and some of the technologies being used to make the most of what you’ve got. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Oil and gas’ Category
Jan
08
2010
Business continuity: 7 tips to plan for disaster recovery
by Amanda Dahl, Director at AWIC
Quite often, business continuity planning is thought to be the domain of very large enterprises, like large financial institutions, who need to continue trading even in the event of major global disaster. But as we mentioned in our article on the impact of snow-related transport issues on businesses, “Small companies, especially ones without dedicated IT staff are the most vulnerable to loss of productivity due to weather-related staff shortages. According to the Federation of Small Businesses, this could translate to an estimated 1.2 billion pounds lost in a day because of the disruption, with one-fifth of the UK workforce unable to make it into work.”
Nov
10
2009
The 3 key roles for effective capacity management
by Amanda Dahl, Director at AWIC
Good capacity planning is worth the effort
The benefits of an effective capacity management programme are well known to most IT departments. Proper capacity management allows you to:
- Reduce infrastructure costs by sweating your assets
- Meet agreed service levels by avoiding capacity-related outages
- Accurately budget for infrastructure growth by projecting future requirements
- Avoid project delays by having appropriate resources on-hand
And, by now, most IT departments have some form of capacity planning tool implemented which can give them fairly accurate reports on current and past usage.
But what are you doing with those reports? Who attends your capacity planning meetings? And do you have a dedicated capacity planning manager?
(more…)
Oct
26
2009
What if your business lost connection to the internet tonight?
It happens more than you’d think.
Picture this: you’re about to login to your company’s online banking software to make sure those cheques got paid in, and the page won’t load. A few clicks, and then a reboot of your computer….and before long, you’re on the phone to your ISP. Ten days – and several heated phone calls – later, the ISP finally admits that one of their engineers clipped a cable up near the Tesco Express and they’re ever so sorry that you’ve been without internet service all this time.
It may sound far-fetched, but that’s a true story. What would you do if your business was without the internet for 10 days? How could you cope?
Sep
18
2009
5 Reasons to Enforce Your Change Management Policy
by Amanda Dahl, Director at AWIC
Many companies already have some form of change management in place, but how stringent is yours?
Organisations often put change management to one side, citing the need for flexibility and rapid releases. While it’s true that change management can slow down the rate of change, this is often of benefit to the business in the long run. Think about the business impact of pushing through an unstructured change which causes an interruption to your service. Have you stopped to calculate the loss to the business of your last change-related outage? Even if it was only the loss of business opportunity, it can add up significantly.
Aug
14
2009
Remote technical support teams: The right recruitment process
by Ivan Zidek, Director at AWIC
In the first of a series on remote teams, we take a look at some best practices for recruiting remotely and what to consider when building a remote technology team.
The scenario
Take one London-based investment banking technology organisation, the need for more system administrators to support three thousand high-end servers, budgets being slashed faster than tuna in a sushi shop and what do you get? The move to a new breed of remote system administrator.
Aug
12
2009
Virtualisation: things to consider over a cappuccino
As more and more companies journey down the path to virtualisation, AWI takes a look at some of the best practices that could make the difference between a successful implementation and a more chaotic rollout.
Aug
07
2009
Why buy new hardware for virtualisation?
by Amanda Dahl, Director at AWIC
One of the advantages of virtualising your server estate is that VMware will run on a wide range of hardware, allowing you to recycle your older kit and make the most of the hardware you already own. This can be very useful if you are not in a position to make significant capital expenditures — something effecting many IT managers in the current economic climate.
