The commercial potential of cloud computing and cloud services is widely accepted, both in private industry and in the public sector.  The opportunities for cost reduction and efficiency in the UK public sector are real and achievable, but require significant changes to procurement practices, delivery frameworks and across the supplierlandscape. 

Many IT organizations have grown dissatisfied with tape-based backups and are looking for alternatives. This white paper will discuss the factors to consider when evaluating any of these alternatives, including a framework for assessing the value to IT for each approach. 

This week’s Computer Weekly kicks off our Buyer's Guide to private cloud. It also contains our RSA conference coverage of the latest IT security trends and the future for Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative. And we discuss the role of apprenticeships in encouraging more young people to work in IT. 

Securing an organization's assets requires work, but there are some basic steps that can simplify the task by taking a one-two-three approach. In this whitepaper, you'll learn how you can sort your security controls by categorizing and grouping them in order to help prevent common security problems. 

Many organizations are moving malware protection to the Web and investing in Secure Web Gateways. This webcast will help sort the different feature options and deployment challenges and help you bring efficiency to your threat management programs by centralizing Web-based security and stop managing numerous standalone Web security products. 

In the Fall 2011 issue of IT in Europe, Manek Dubash explores how open-source storage could be the key to breaking the chains of vendor lock-in. 

About 50% of companies have an application performance monitoring (APM) system in place, and those that don't are likely losing customers and revenue. Quest Software has made vast improvements to its Foglight APM line, including supreme simplicity and virtualization capabilities. Read this and learn about the research behind these advancements. 

<p>Learn how to communicate more effectively with your boss in this guide from Dr Brian Sutton and Dr Robina Chatham. </p> <p> </p> 

Creating solid SLAs will let you save the day when the unexpected happens — and keep aggressive users at bay with a set of written expectations. Check out this brief white paper to learn how to build a better SLA for your organization. 

This white paper discusses the inherent challenges of dealing with "big data": overwhelming information that seems to come from everywhere and everything. Continue reading to discover strategies for overcoming these challenges by processing "big data" and providing impressive, real-time decision making. 

Check out this resource center to learn about Blueworks Live, which allows you automate processes currently run by e-mail. Easily collaborate on tasks with co-workers across teams, departments and the entire organization, access communities focused on process improvement and create process blueprints to discover, map and document your processes. 

Design teams across the world collaborate to create and develop prod­ucts. Unfortunately, IT organizations face serious challenges when collaborative teams share large files. This white paper will assess the strengths and weaknesses of the four technologies most commonly used to enhance file sharing for distributed teams.