IT Trends & Technology

The central role of the iSeries for businesses, as well as the need to optimize its management, is constantly shown by numerous sources. According to the most recent IBM i Strategy and Roadmap, there are more than 150,000 companies worldwide utilizing the iSeries platform.

First National Technology Solutions (FNTS) has welcomed two strategic leaders to its executive team. Ken Marr has joined FNTS as Chief Technology Officer and Arvind Thapar has been named Vice President of Strategy. 

The IBM AS400 through the current IBM iSeries has been prized for performance, stability, and dependability for more than three decades and continues to serve countless businesses today. According to the market intelligence company iDatalabs, 28,148 companies are using the IBM AS400, but other sources peg the number as well over triple that figure.

On Friday, June 15, First National Technology Solutions (FNTS) is hosting a free Women in Tech event for women in the technology field and young women, ages 14 to 21, who are pursuing a tech career. 

As big data in healthcare continues its exponential growth, it represents new challenges of storage, access accuracy, and actionable use. Despite (or because of) the advance of HIT systems, the prevalence of data silos continue. Consequently, addressing these big data challenges requires careful planning for collection and processing while ensuring data integrity, so that it can be accessed and analyzed to reveal actionable outcomes.

All business today use the public cloud in one form or another. As that usage grows and evolves, cloud maintenance becomes a more complex challenge. While the need for many aspects of that maintenance are visible, there are many that can grow and evolve out of sight of the business. To that end, here are five public cloud maintenance requirements you may not have considered.

The Internet of Things (IoT), which applies to the internet-connected devices we use on a daily basis, is evolving. New terms are being coined to keep up with the growth of IoT, from the Internet of Everything (IoE), which extends the definition of IoT to include people, processes, data and things, to the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), which includes remote patient care devices. According to Gartner, the number of internet connected devices has outpaced the number of humans on Earth, at 8.4 billion, revolutionizing industries and business practices.

The democratization of the cloud within the enterprise has freed operational costs, productivity, and innovative possibilities across departments that have formed the basis for digital transformation. The downside is, that freedom has led to unchecked cloud sprawl that is hampering security and cost containment. In fact, 53 percent of all cloud users and 64 percent of mature cloud users estimate that 30 percent of cloud spend is wasted, according to the RightScale 2017 State of the Cloud Report.

As mergers and acquisitions (M&A) increase, more IT departments will be faced with data center consolidation. Although it’s common practice for the acquired company to adopt the data center practices of the parent company, consolidation still requires detailed evaluation of current equipment, processes, and personnel.

Although the progression from a hybrid to a multi-cloud strategy is steadily increasing, it remains a challenging process for many businesses. In fact, fewer than half of organizations have a multi-cloud strategy, according to a Business Cloud News survey.

While most businesses understand the importance of cloud computing to digital transformation and having an agile business, the cloud can only perform as well as the business’s network infrastructure. For businesses preparing to embark on a cloud strategy, aligning the network to the needs of the cloud is the first step to ensuring that the strategy is optimally realized.

Despite the growing momentum towards digital transformation, businesses across all sectors are limited to incremental change because of budget constraints. The result is legacy technologies and IT infrastructure that must be maintained for a wide variety of reasons. The challenge with this incremental approach is fulfilling the IT staffing needs for maintaining these legacy systems.

Container technology adoption has been picking up steam in the last several years across all sectors and types of organizations. According to a Forrester report, 82 percent of container users expect to have more than 100 containers deployed within the next two years.

In the recent IDC paper, “The Business Value of the Connected Mainframe for Digital Transformation,” there is a clear path for its part in digital transformation moving forward. How organizations find that way forward is largely dependent on keeping pace with innovation, including making decisions regarding updates and support.

Although it hasn’t yet reached the stage of ubiquity, container technology is well on its way to becoming a fundamental part of the IT infrastructure toolbox. While its many uses revolve around applications and app development, they are delivering ROI in multiple forms. A Forrester study found that 66 percent of organizations who adopted containers experienced accelerated developer efficiency with even more seeing an increase in application deployment speed.