Data Foundry Blog - Insights

Many companies underfund their business continuity and disaster recovery plans, not realizing several hours of downtime can cost them hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars. Every company’s DR strategy and budget should be based on their unique requirements, not a cookie-cutter plan. The best way to approach spending on disaster recovery efforts is to first understand your compliance requirements, if you have any, and then calculate your cost of downtime per hour. Once you have an idea of what that number is, you’ll have a better understanding of the ROI on different approaches to disaster recovery. In this blog post, we’ll look at average downtime risk based on availability, and we’ll take a look at how much companies typically allocate for their DR budgets.

In the past decade, software defined networking (SDN) has evolved from an ultra-hyped set of emerging technologies expected to revolutionize interconnected networks to a formidable, trusted solution offered by vendors from Cisco to VMWare. And it’s growing at a steady pace, with a projected market worth of more than $12 billion in 2022, according to a report by IDC.

Edge computing and edge data centers are buzzwords popping up in IT publications all over the Internet, but what do they really mean? Edge computing is more straightforward, and has been simply defined as “data processing power at the edge of a network instead of in a cloud or a central data warehouse.” However, edge data centers are being defined in a variety of ways followed by outrageous claims that this new data center concept will “blow away the cloud.” Your preferred definition will likely depend on your industry. Here are 5 widely communicated ones to broaden your perspective.

In the digital age when nearly every business and industry is powered by sophisticated technology, updates are a fact of life. Software developers are constantly releasing new versions of their solutions while hardware manufacturers are consistently seeking new ways to improve their products.

IT professionals are responsible for making sure all their organization’s hardware, software and network resources are running optimally and well-secured. However, keeping up with your IT infrastructure can be challenging — especially if, like many organizations, you have a hybrid infrastructure model. Fortunately, IT infrastructure monitoring tools can provide the insight you need to monitor resources across your environment to ensure everything is working as it should.

No matter your definition of edge computing, the purpose is to bring processing power closer to the devices that communicate with it. For the purpose of this blog post, “the edge” is any storage or processing equipment that is not in a data center, i.e. computer equipment or machinery in your office, warehouse, or factory that stores or processes data from computers or network-enabled devices nearby.

Over the past few years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has transformed the way nearly every industry transmits, collects and uses data — and the oil and gas industry is no exception.

Energy companies who’ve invested in this new technology are enjoying cost savings, better-streamlined processes, more accurate forecasts for demands and other crucial advantages. And that’s likely why global IoT in the oil and gas market is expected to reach nearly $40 billion by 2023, according to a report from BIS Research.

It’s almost the end of another year, and predictions for 2019 tech trends are rolling in. Many of last year’s predictions rang true for 2018, including the rise of cybercrime-as-a-service, data sovereignty, and hybrid cloud connectivity. It looks like some exciting technologies will finally take off next year and become more commonplace, like augmented analytics, AI integration and edge computing. After analyzing predictions form Gartner, Forbes, Tech Republic and others, here are what we think will the top 9 predictions to watch out for in 2019.

Digital disruption makes businesses more competitive for many reasons, some of which include a reduction in the need for physical assets and materials and increased efficiency and agility. For example, Nest eliminated the need to have both an HVAC and security monitoring system, smart phones took the place of calculators, alarm clocks and cameras. These innovations disrupt entire industries because they are the obvious convenient choice for consumers. They also provide agility through scalable platforms that make it easy for companies to add and offer new services.

As some of you may already know, elections aren’t the only thing Russian hackers are meddling in. They’ve infiltrated our energy and manufacturing sectors as well. This year, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security announced Russian government actors have hacked into energy, nuclear, water and critical manufacturing sectors. In July, they announced Russian hackers had infiltrated utility control rooms where they could have thrown switches if they chose to do so. Russia aside, it has become painfully obvious our industrial IoT (IIoT) and infrastructure are vulnerable.