Blog

Why Active Data Replication™ is vital to the Internet of Things

Sep 25, 2016

The advent of the Internet of Things [IoT], in which everyday objects have network connectivity allowing them to send and receive data, means we are witnessing the explosion of a network that is growing at an incredible pace.

Gartner says 6.4 billion connected 'things' will be in use worldwide by the end of 2016. Cisco thinks that figure will rise to an extraordinary 50 billion by 2020. Whatever the actual numbers, the fact is more and more data is being created as the IoT becomes increasingly ubiquitous. This has the potential to open up virtually endless opportunities and connections but w...

The 8 fallacies of distributed computing are becoming irrelevant

Sep 01, 2016

In 1969, the U.S. Department of Defense created ARPANET, the precursor to today’s internet. Around the same time, the SWIFT protocol used for money transfers was also established. These are both early examples of distributed systems: a collection of independent computers that appear to users as a single coherent system.

Many come to know they have a distributed system when the crash of a computer they’ve never heard of affects the whole system. This is often the result of assumptions architects and designers of distribution systems are likely to make.

In 1994, Peter Deutsch, who worked at Sun ...

What the Brexit vote will mean for data sovereignty

Jul 15, 2016

The only certainty about Brexit, the UK’s departure from the European Union, is that it is going to create uncertainty in terms of data sovereignty, particularly in the field of cloud computing. Data sovereignty refers to data being held in a country in adherence to the laws of that state. That is fine if your company is based in a single location and single market but it becomes trickier if you have diverse locations and lots of different laws with which you need to comply.

When the UK is part of the European Union it has the same data sovereignty laws as other countries in the EU ...

The democratization of data in the cloud

Jul 05, 2016

Data democratization puts crucial business information into the hands of those who need it the most.

“Data is the new oil, the new natural resource of our time” is something I have often said. Yet this is misleading. Having a lot of data sitting around is, in fact, worthless. The real value lies in being able to analyze large and diverse data sets and act on the results.

Just like air travel was once only for the elite, data analytics was once available only to the big multinationals. It was by no means perfect, with timescales of six to nine months just to build a viable data...

Zen and the art of cloud computing

Jun 07, 2016

“The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn’t any other test. If the machine produces tranquility, it’s right. If it disturbs you it’s wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed” wrote Pirsig in 1974 in his classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. These words could not be truer today in a world where speed, convenience and ease of use are all necessary components in the modern consumer experience.

Through documenting in the first person a motorcycle journey made across America with his son and two friends Pirsig’s refle...

← Prev
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Next →