Cynthia Harvey

As big data and cloud computing have become more popular, the market for cloud analytics has taken off. In the February 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms report, a majority of those surveyed (51 percent) said that they had active or planned cloud business intelligence (BI) deployments. Gartner analysts added, “We […]

For individuals, deciding to use a cloud computing service often requires nothing more than signing up with an email address. For enterprises, however, cloud adoption can be a much more complicated process. In any organization, a number of key groups will be involved in the cloud adoption process: business managers, the CIO and other executives, […]

Once an organization has chosen to pursue a cloud computing strategy, the next major decision will be whether to use a public cloud service or to set up a private cloud. It’s important to note that the private vs. public cloud decision doesn’t have to be an either-or choice. Industry analysts say that most enterprises […]

The past decade has witnessed a dramatic change in the way organizations handle their computing needs. In the 1990s and early 2000s, most enterprises ran their applications on servers that they owned and maintained in their own data centers. But today, cloud computing has come to the forefront. In fact, the RightScale 2017 Cloud Computing […]

Public cloud computing is one of the fastest-growing markets within enterprise IT. It allows anyone to gain immediate access to computing resources via the Internet and pay for those resources based on how much they consume. Since launching around 2006, public cloud has completely reshaped the enterprise IT industry, prompting vast changes in how datacenters […]

Are open source software and the cloud good for each other? At first glance, the question seems a little silly. After all, cloud computing and open source have both experienced surges in use to the point where nearly every company on the planet uses both. And many analysts suggest that neither one would have experienced […]

To many people, artificial intelligence (AI) seems like a futuristic — and possibly frightening — concept. But the truth is that many Web services and technology companies have been quietly building AI capabilities into their products for some time. In fact, if you’ve been online or used a mobile device today, you probably encountered an […]

Hyperconvergence is one of the hottest trends in IT infrastructure. Earlier this year, researchers at Gartner predicted, “The market for hyperconverged integrated systems (HCIS) will grow 79 percent to reach almost $2 billion in 2016, propelling it toward mainstream use in the next five years.” They added that the market should grow to $5 billion […]

Cloud computing fees are always complicated, but Microsoft Azure pricing is even more complex than most. The Azure cloud offers a huge array of services with a dizzying array of tiers, regions and instances available. In addition, Microsoft offers discounts on volume licensing for its largest customers, but the terms of those agreements are fairly […]

During the past few years, the terms artificial intelligence and machine learning have begun showing up frequently in technology news and websites. Often the two are used as synonyms, but many experts argue that they have subtle but real differences. And of course, the experts sometimes disagree among themselves about what those differences are. In […]