11 ways to identify the best supplier verification partner for your organization. Third-party supplier qualification vendors typically offer a combination of technology and service – but they are not all created equal. This guide will help you compare the features to look for in a technology platform, the kinds of services provided, and how to evaluate a third-party supplier qualification partner to meet your needs. It is most suited to safety, procurement, compliance, risk management, operations, and other professionals evaluating a third-party vendor to help manage their supplier qualification program.

To better understand how companies are finding the unique, hybrid cloud architectures that best meet their needs, we interviewed executives at companies that had reduced or changed their use of managed or cloud IaaS or that chose to avoid the public cloud in the first place. These companies include retail, social media, healthcare, financial services, and public sector companies. Some of these companies were born in the cloud while others transitioned from traditional IT infrastructures. Company sizes ranged from 300 employees to more than 300,000.

In our 40-criteria evaluation of data center hardware platforms for software-defined networking (SDN), we identified the nine most significant players — Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Arista Networks, Extreme Networks (which recently acquired Brocade Communications System’s data center networking business), Cisco Systems, Cumulus Networks, Dell, Huawei, Juniper Networks, and Pluribus Networks — and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps infrastructure and operations professionals (I&O) make the right choice.

In March of 2019, Sirkin Research was commissioned by LiveAction to identify the driving forces of network transformation and how the rapidly evolving network environment is impacting network professionals. It is well recognized that network transformations, such as SD-WAN, WiFi, and multi-cloud, edge computing among other trends, are creating a host of new challenges and opportunities for network operations. This research is based on responses from over 163 network and IT professionals in predominantly in enterprise organizations with at least $1 billion in revenue

IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals need to rethink how they design, deploy, and manage IT services in a way that seamlessly combines internal resources and public cloud platforms into a single platform.

Colocation facilities are rapidly designing and building new facilities in order to capitalize on market opportunity. Getting the facility up and running is the first challenge. The second? Recruiting, training, and retaining qualified data center staff. In this webinar, co-hosted by Tony DeSpirito, VP & General Manager Data Center Operations at Schneider Electric, & Brian Gisi, Infrastructure Management & Services Manager at IBM, to access field-tested methods & strategies that can help you: 1. Overcome the worldwide shortage of experienced data center professionals 2. Understand how out-tasking data center operations can benefit you & your clients 3. Identify key characteristics of a strong data center operations partner

In Forrester’s 25-criteria evaluation of enterprise mobile management (EMM) vendors, we identified the 11 most significant EMM providers — AirWatch by VMware, BlackBerry, Citrix, Good Technology, IBM, Landesk, Microsoft, MobileIron, SAP, Sophos, and Soti — and analyzed their offerings. This report details our findings about how well each vendor fulfills our criteria and where they stand in relation to each other to help infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals select the right partner for their enterprise mobile management.

Welcome to the very first edition of Modern Monitoring, a collection of articles and insights designed to help IT operations and DevOps professionals deliver more resilient, supportable and high-performance IT services. It’s perhaps a sign of the times that monitoring as a discipline is receiving much more attention within the biz tech community. And deservedly so. The new distributed application architectures being built, together with the dizzying pace of software delivery, demand new approaches in what’s traditionally been perceived as a “keeping the lights on” IT practice. Of course, there’s no better way to consider monitoring than to draw parallels with other practices in related fields. It’s why we’ve included a couple of pieces with a distinct aeronautical flavor that discuss importance of instrumentation and contextual awareness.

In the 26-criteria evaluation of continuous delivery and release automation (CDRA) providers, we identified the 15 most significant — Atlassian, CA technologies, Chef Software, Clarive, CloudBees, electric Cloud, Flexagon, Hewlett packard enterprise (Hpe), IBM, Micro Focus, Microsoft, puppet, Red Hat, VMware, and Xebialabs — and researched, analyzed, and scored them. We focused on core features, including modeling, deploying, managing, governing, and visualizing pipelines, and on each vendor’s ability to match a strategy to these features. this report helps infrastructure and operations (I&o) professionals make the right choice when looking for CDRA solutions for their development and operations (Devops) automation.

This report, conducted by SC Media and sponsored by Fidelis asked security leaders, decision makers and influencers what they were most concerned about, what their C-Suite was most concerned about, and what they’re doing (or planning to do) about it. As we start off 2018 it is clear that cybersecurity is ripe for transformation. The focus has shifted away from tactical technologies that provide more proverbial fingers in the dam and towards a strategic approach that focuses on delivering quantifiable improvement to the effectiveness and efficiency of security operations. Download this a research report to: See what executives and boards of directors care most about. See the top obstacles, gaps and concerns faced by security leaders. See where we are on the road to cyber maturity, as reported by your peers. See when security professionals prefer tactical approaches and when they prefer strategic plans.

In our 28-criteria evaluation of application performance management (APM) solutions, we identified the 14 most significant vendors — AppDynamics, AppNeta, BMC Software, CA Technologies, Dell, Dynatrace, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), IBM, ManageEngine, Microsoft, Nastel Technologies, NetScout, New Relic, and Riverbed Technology — and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals make the right choice for their organization.

The Digital Marketing Maturity Guide helps organizations determine the level of sophistication within their digital marketing operations. Dimensional Research to conducted a global survey of 700 marketing professionals gauging the level of digital marketing maturity across various verticals and company sizes. Use these findings to benchmark your organization against other groups.

The Digital Marketing Maturity Guide helps organizations determine the level of sophistication within their digital marketing operations. Dimensional Research to conducted a global survey of 700 marketing professionals gauging the level of digital marketing maturity across various verticals and company sizes. Use these findings to benchmark your organization against other groups.

This eBook reveals how spreadsheets come with hidden risks and costs – and how cost-effective, cloud-based, and customizable no-code databases present a better alternative. Based on a study of 700+ business, operations, and IT professionals, this eBook will help you to improve productivity, enhance decision-making, and centralize data.

There’s no question about it: purpose-built all-flash storage is an exceptional catalyst for improving data center operations and supporting the transition to the cloud operating model. AFAs’ highly strategic role in both IT and business underscores the need to move storage purchase discussions and decisions beyond the storage team. IT leaders who want to see their organizations reap AFAs’ benefits—performance improvement, productivity gains, and cost savings, among others—should actively define their AFA strategies and oversee storage-related decision making, thus treating storage like the newly strategic asset it has become. To learn more, visit purestorage.com/cloud.

As cost and productivity expectations persist, many functions are rethinking the way their work gets done to remain both efficient and innovative. But not all business partners may welcome these kinds of transformations. To stay progressive, the best companies enable employees to exercise greater influence over internal clients and alter the entrenched views their function.

Like many manufacturers, your shop floor operations may be challenged with inefficient standard processes, unpredictable downtime, and difficulties with machinery maintenance. A manufacturing execution system (MES) can help make the most of your shop floor’s capabilities, with tools that can identify under-performing and high-performance machines, and then optimize asset utilization accordingly. Engineers can design, refine, and implement better work processes, and operations professionals can improve preventive maintenance and response times. The result is less downtime, less scrap, more productivity, and lower cost. With the real-time information of an MES, you can transform the shop floor into an important contributor that drives the strategic direction of your business, differentiates your brand, and positions your company as a market leader.

Like many manufacturers, your shop floor operations may be challenged with inefficient standard processes, unpredictable downtime, and difficulties with machinery maintenance. A manufacturing execution system (MES) can help make the most of your shop floor’s capabilities, with tools that can identify under-performing and high-performance machines, and then optimize asset utilization accordingly. Engineers can design, refine, and implement better work processes, and operations professionals can improve preventive maintenance and response times. The result is less downtime, less scrap, more productivity, and lower cost. With the real-time information of an MES, you can transform the shop floor into an important contributor that drives the strategic direction of your business, differentiates your brand, and positions your company as a market leader.

Many organizations consider optimization only for their largest or most challenging business problems, often utilizing a small number of Operations Research professionals. But in our age of Big Data, market globalization and increased competition, many organizations are successfully making the case that optimization can be applied to a wider variety of business and operational decisions, and be developed by a new group of users — the organization’s business analysts. With a proven track record of results demonstrating that organizations can increase profitability with business analysts applying optimization to many types of business problems, FICO’s proven development methodology is giving organizations the confidence to extend optimization practices across their enterprises.

In a world in which disruption has become the norm, the rules of success change constantly. What is the best growth strategy? What should sales operations professionals keep an eye on in 2018 to remain competitive? And where should sales organizations allocate their resources? Read this article to find out.

In real estate, the most important factor is location, location, location! Your services are not quite as sensitive to the physical position of your technology, but location certainly can be a pivotal factor in optimizing your service design and service delivery. Ideally, location shouldn’t matter; however, it does have an e?ect on customer experience. When technology services were simpler, location was largely irrelevant, but now the complexity of new services demands a strategy more in line with your BT agenda than your former IT agenda. The e?ects of regulatory, cost, risk, and performance factors will vary based on the physical location of your technology resources. Colocation providers, cloud service providers, and even traditional hosting services o?er plenty of evolving options to help infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals balance these factors to optimize service design and delivery.

As organizations continue to deploy server virtualization, questions have shifted from "if" to "how." Out of all 220 inquiries Forrester's IT infrastructure and operations team answered on data centers, servers, and virtual appliances in 2008 to date, 72 were specifically in regard to server virtualization. These IT professionals' most common inquiries addressed vendor comparison, optimum physical to virtual consolidation ratios, expected ROI, and situation-specific concerns regarding the possible benefits that virtual servers could provide. These inquiries came from organizations in the early stages of implementing server virtualization — if you are considering or are in the process of implementing, you too should be asking these questions.

Cloud is becoming an essential ingredient to a successful IT infrastructure. Recent research by IDC has identified how the growth of cloud as a computing platform has magnified the importance of cloud skills to the success of the enterprise. Moreover, it is becoming clear that IT professionals with cloud skills are strongly influencing both the type of cloud infrastructure and the ultimate pace of adoption of cloud. This puts IT professionals with cloud skills in the driver's seat of their own career. In fact, IT professionals with certifications related to cloud development and operations have dramatically more influence over their organizations' adoption and expansion of cloud services than otherwise similar IT professionals have over the adoption of other types of technical solutions. Cloud skills accelerate the success and career path of IT professionals. The impactful cloud roles are diverse: Multicloud or hybrid cloud management, workload-centric management, and DevOps illustrate

Take a look at the top five reasons business and operations professionals are implementing fleet management systems — and seeing results. This easy-to-read ebook shows you how fleet management works and which features can lead to increased profits, better customer service and other important benefits. Learn more about features you may not have known about, as well as the surprising numbers around what you stand to gain. You’ll see what more and more of your peers are discovering — that a fleet management solution may be the key to making your job easier, by helping you solve common fleet-related problems.

In Forrester’s 25-criteria evaluation of enterprise mobile management (EMM) vendors, we identified the 11 most significant EMM providers — AirWatch by VMware, BlackBerry, Citrix, Good Technology, IBM, Landesk, Microsoft, MobileIron, SAP, Sophos, and Soti — and analyzed their offerings. This report details our findings about how well each vendor fulfills our criteria and where they stand in relation to each other to help infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals select the right partner for their enterprise mobile management.