The security of SQL Server database servers has become a top priority for database administrators. This article examines best practices that can be employed to secure Microsoft SQL Server 2000 databases. It provides an overview of the security model in SQL Server 2000 and discusses best practices you can employ to secure yours. 

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. 

Benchmarking, or the analysis of operational costs, productivity, and service levels in a comparative context of market standards, is a firmly established management tool. 

This article from Gartner offers advice to public sector organisations thinking of deploying cloud computing and assess the progress made by governments in their use of the cloud. 

The UK's June Budget provides a mandate for all government departments to submit their spending review plans before the summer break and reports that it has scheduled the government spending review for October. 

Gartner analysts, William Clark, David W Cearley and Avivah Litan, explain how business can exploit context-aware computing and social media. 

This edition of BI Trends & Strategies features a lead article by SearchCIO.com's Linda Tucci, who offers a helping hand in the quest to dismantle the dreaded data silo. The second piece outlines mobile BI, including a reference to Apple's iPad, and the final article delves into the world of performance management. 

<p>In this white paper, learn about an innovative planning, scheduling, and monitoring strategy designed to enable businesses in the energy industry to improve operational efficiency, reduce risks, and cut costs. Discover the benefits of a planning technique that provides real-time visualization into and support of business operations.</p> 

<p>Businesses need to keep a close eye on the evolution of cloud based services to avoid wasting money and missing out on business opportunities.</p> <p><strong> </strong></p> 

Read these articles to create a framework for stating your company's case for implementing a data governance strategy. 

With a potential economic crisis looming in the Eurozone, Gartner offers a checklist of questions that CIOs and CEOs should ask each other. 

Philip Dawson, Gartner VP offers best practice advice for organisations looking to virtualise their IT infrastructure. 

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.