Between 25% and 50% of most companies’ revenue goes toward purchasing goods and services, so the ability to keep these costs down is paramount. Applying strategic sourcing methodologies to pinpoint spend categories and select qualified suppliers allows organizations to reduce expenses and positively impact the bottom line. 

The inaugural issue of BI Trends & Strategies offers sound advice to help you in ensuring your organization is on track to keep up with the rapidly changing landscape of BI and analytics. In this issue, readers will learn about a big data definition and the impact it will have on BI and data warehousing, agile development methodology and more. 

Tim Zimmerman, Gartner research director offers some practical advice to organisations wanted to use iPads on their corporate wireless networks. 

Query performance three times faster is just one item in this top-10 list from the analysts at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). Download this article to read the full top 10 and learn why Cognos 10 holds "strong value for upgrading customers and prospects." 

This chapter from the SearchDataBackup.com Backup best practices guide explores the key backup technologies in today’s storage environment. This article identifies specific points of interest for disk backup. Download this chapter to learn all about disk storage as well as specific considerations of enterprise-class disk arrays to keep in mind. 

Are you going to upgrade to SQL Server 2012? This edition of SQL Server Insider sets out to help you decide whether the investment is worth it or not. Read this edition to learn if several IT pros are going to upgrade and why, how this release will affect the database marketplace and pros and cons of actually upgrading. 

This paper examines the different types of cloud services available, the potential benefits of private clouds for SMBs, specific solutions for companies building private clouds and much more! 

If you're a small or mid-sized business thinking about virtualization, particularly in the world of Microsoft, it makes sense to upgrade your database servers as well. This article explains why to upgrade and provides several examples of companies that have successfully made the move. 

This first issue of Cloud Development Digest, geared for Java developers, features the following three articles: "Java Platform as a Service Providers Vie for Developers’ Affection," "Cloud Architecture Key to Leveraging Cloud-Based Services," and "IaaS Management Tools and Test Cycles in the Cloud." 

Storage systems are severely susceptible to attack and it is time for organizations to rethink their security tactics. Read this eGuide to learn about concepts regarding storage security and solutions like encryption that can help defend against attack. 

Check out this special European edition of Storage magazine for expert analyses and forecasts about where storage is heading and how you can get ahead of the curve. 

Although hardware storage prices have come down, storage administration and software expenses still run about seven times the cost of storage hardware. 

Limited space, power, and cooling capacity have led many organizations to recognize that capital and operating expenses for datacenters have become an increasing part of their budgets. Read this paper to learn about the range of technologies that can help you drive more efficiency in your datacenter.