In this week's issue of Computer Weekly, we look at the key technologies that retailers are turning to for IT-enabling customers' Christmas shopping. We examine research revealing the huge cost of application software that fails to meet requirements; and we talk to one of the pioneers of agile software development. Download the new issue now. 

Increasing numbers of enterprises are incorporating project portfolio management in their strategic planning. And just as individuals use financial reports and analyses to consider various investment options, the enterprise uses an analysis called the Business Case to evaluate various project proposals for inclusion in the project portfolio. 

The majority of user authentication schemes today still use userid and password. The burden to users of managing large numbers of userids and passwords has led to proposals for Federated Identity systems, where a single set of credentials can be used to authenticate with several organisations, which have agreed to work together as a federation. 

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. 

The need for strategic information by department and executive managers is driving the transformation of tactical departmental systems into enterprise solutions, regardless of the size of the company employing the solutions. 

Chris Wolf talks about the tools that are used to increase virtual server performance. Later, virtualization platform decision points are covered with emphasis on OS and application compatibility and support, high availability, automation and management. 

In this report the Taneja Group will first review the current barriers to wider adoption of VDI, and examine how Dell's EqualLogic PS Series iSCSI SAN arrays can help customers with these problems. They will then validate these claims via benchmark performance tests and interviews, and finally test performance claims under additional scenarios. 

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we look at the importance of IT strategy when budgets are under pressure. The first part of our Buyer’s Guide to virtualisation examines the barriers preventing many organisations from adopting the technology; and Transport for London’s CIO talks about how IT helps avoid Olympic travel chaos. Download the issue now. 

This white paper details how organizations can leverage cloud-based storage offerings as part of their data protection plans. The paper also takes a closer look at the solutions offered by Riverbed that allow organizations to integrate cloud-based storage within solutions that address a growing set of data protection demands. 

Oracle’s Sun Blade 6000 Modular System was designed from the ground up to deliver far greater efficiency than a corresponding set of rack-mount servers. Read this white paper to find out why organizations everywhere are considering blade systems a part of a winning strategy in the battle for space, power, and cooling. 

In this first session, Wolf introduces principles of virtual infrastructure optimization and covers virtual machine placement optimization and bottleneck identification. 

This paper is the second in a two-part series exploring the innovation barrier – the point at which testing can no longer keep pace with development in the equipment manufacturing industry. It examines the innovation barrier’s symptoms – from slowdowns in development to mounting quality issues – and the potential impact on equipment manufacturers. 

This is a summary of  Part Two  of Cebr’s report, The Cloud Dividend. The research involved an independent study to quantify the economic benefits of cloud computing to business and to Europe’s five largest economies’ (in alphabetical order, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK).