BizTech Brief #14
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Week Commencing 10th October
Following one of the biggest mergers in IT history between Dell and EMC, VMware has announced their own strategic partnerships within the cloud. This weeks BizTech Brief covers the latest and biggest news from the past week in the industry.
If you missed any past BizTech Brief articles, click the link below:
VMware Cloud on AWS - A Closer Look
Last week VMware and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a strategic partnership providing the ability to run a full VMware SDDC as a cloud service on AWS. The service will include all the enterprise tools such as vSphere, NSX, VSAN, ESXi and more.
vCenter will be the main platform of operations meaning all tools you currently run against vCenter in your on-premises vSphere deployment will work with the in-0cloud SDDC environment. The VMware Cloud will be deployed as a private cloud containing vSphere ESXi hosts, VSAN and NSX on AWS infrastructure. This will allow you to run enterprise workloads with the same performance, reliability and availability levels as your on-prem deployments. The main difference between the on-premises and in-cloud deployment is that VMware manages and operates the infrastructure of the VMware Cloud on AWS.
One strength of VMware Cloud on AWS service is that it allows administrators, operation teams and architects to use their existing skill set and tools to consume AWS infrastructure. You can move workloads to the cloud without having to replatform them in any way, no conversion, repackaging or extensive testing of VM's.
Another strength is the ability to pair current workloads with the advanced feature set of AWS. As a result IT teams will be able to extend their skill set discovering the vast catalog of services AWS has to offer. This creates an environment that works seamlessly with both on-prem private clouds and advanced AWS public cloud services.
For more details and a technical overview of the new service, read the full article.
You can create and share Office Documents while collaborating in Yammer
These days people work on the road and need the ability to collaborate with co-workers to create documents in Word, PowerPoint and Excel. You are now able to create, edit and share these documents without leaving Yammer. With the full functionality of Office Online, you can co-author documents with colleagues, view version history and mark important files as official.
Share files from SharePoint and OneDrive
It is now even easier to leverage the power of SharePoint and OneDrive with the ability to share and discuss these files with your Yammer teams. There is an improved file picker that lets you browse and share files from your Office 365 SharePoint Document Library or OneDrive for Business accounts.
To read the full article, click here.
The benefits of Office and EMS
The ComputerWorld team have put together a quick guide about Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) and the benefits they bring to your business.
Office 365
Office 365 is for desktop, mobile and tablet and contains all the tools you need to modernise the way your business operates. Office 365 can boost your productivity by allowing users to work and collaborate anywhere on any device.
There are monthly models that allow for predictable costing. Moving servers off premises can eliminate a significant proportion of your capital outlay as well as recurring maintenance costs.
EMS
Microsoft's EMS and Security suite offers state of-the-art security features that will help you keep your data in your hands at all times, while complementing Office 365.
The complete package includes:
- Azure Active Directory Premium
- Microsoft Intune
- Azure Rights Management
- Advanced Threat Analysis
Three-quarters of UK policing websites lack secure encryption
Three- quarters (73%) of UK policing websites are in need of serious and urgent improvement. The briefing is based on a scan of 71 police and policing-affiliated websites in the first independent assessment of UK policing’s cyber security, according to the centre, which is a non-profit organisation aimed at promoting world-class policing and public safety and providing supporting frontline professionals.
Almost a quarter of sites lacked any automatic secure connections, meaning information is communicated in plain unencrypted text across the internet, with more than 70% of these sites inviting users to submit personal data.
In some cases, information specifically relating to criminal activity was sought in plain text without any form of secure connection, which the briefing said should be halted because it puts members of the public at risk.
The worst performing, were the websites of the British Transport Police, College of Policing, Dyfed-Powys, Greater Manchester, Hampshire, HMICS, Humberside, Ministry of Defence Police, National Crime Agency, National Police Air Service, National Police Chiefs’ Council, North Wales, Northumbria, Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC), Surrey, Sussex, and the UK Missing Persons Bureau.
It’s 2016 – the internet is not new, the cyber security threat is not new – and yet some police forces and their IT providers seem to think it is acceptable to pay large sums of taxpayer money for insecure technology,” said Geoghegan.
