According to a recent study conducted by Acronis and research house Vanson Bourne, 63% of SMBs would take a day or more to recover from system failure. Imagine how your business would get through a day without access to systems and data.

Steve Pascoe knows full well what a gift a cochlear implant is having received a bilateral cochlear implant a few years ago. Now working as the Information Technology and Communications Manager for the Sydney Cochlear Implant Centre (SCIC), he is determined to use technology in the most efficient way in a quest to help more people to receive the necessary services to support successful cochlear implants.

GartnerÂ’s Rob McMillan reports that content-aware data loss prevention (DLP) solutions are fast becoming the talk of many organisations to help them address sensitive data issues. He predicts that within the next few years DLP will be included as part of the basic duty of care for enterprises and points out the ramifications of this trend.

It doesn’t depend on size or location, but wherever a data centre is you can be sure one of the main concerns of the operators is that they have enough power to keep servicing their clients. With data centres consuming around 2% of all power in the US and similar amounts in other countries, the race is on to guarantee sufficient power, reports Merri Mack.

Data centre consolidation, and occasionally migration, consumes significant time and resources and is fraught with risk. Despite these challenges, the potential benefits of these projects such as cost savings and security have lead many organisations to initiate these projects.

The Australian Information Industry Association today released a white paper examining the critical role that technology will play in the reduction of CO₂ emissions and the development of a low-carbon economy. [ + ]

A delegation of leading Australian ICT research institutions is on its way to Brussels to participate in the European Commission’s biennial ICT research event. [ + ]

IT teams responsible for Australia’s business data transmissions services are likely to be operating in survival mode. Costs are rising and security risks escalating.

Business analytics empowers organisations to solve complex business problems, manage performance to achieve measurable business objectives, drive sustainable growth through innovation and anticipate and manage change. It allows organisations to make a difference, providing the insight and understanding to support fact-based decisions and confident actions - and providing the feedback that is needed to create a learning organisation.

Christopher Johnson’s insatiable interest in technology has not waned since he was a child. In fact, Johnson thinks he was born with zeros and ones in his blood. Now the CIO for Parsons Brinckerhoff Australia-Pacific (PB A-P) and part of its leadership team, Johnson is less interested in specific technology and more focused on how technology can support business. That’s not to say that he has given up on researching (and occasionally ‘playing with’) leading-edge technology, as his peers will attest.

The infrastructure for vastly improved desktop management is being rolled out right now. It’s client-side virtualisation and it looks just like a nice new PC, says Citrix Systems’ Peter Brockhoff as he explains the technical details.

In July’s feature we looked at the recent trend of vendors offering pre-integrated packages of infrastructure, combining servers, storage, networking in the one physical box. This month, Andrew Collins wonders how these integrated boxes fit into a security strategy.

While information is the lifeblood of every organisation, exponential data growth and rising costs make it difficult for businesses to manage their data. Neville Vincent outlines the issues and how organisations can alleviate the associated pressures and costs.

The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) has welcomed the announcement of the new Australian Government. [ + ]

Relationships matter when dealing with IT vendors. [ + ]