IT Trends & Technology

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.

First National Technology Solutions (FNTS), a leading managed IT services provider, today announced it has achieved Platinum Tier status as a Cloud Service Provider/Strategic Outsourcer within the Dell EMC Partner Program.

The Platinum Tier status recognizes FNTS for its excellence and commitment to Dell EMC . FNTS received Platinum Tier status based on achieving core competencies in compliance, revenue and training requirements. The Platinum distinction will provide FNTS access to specialized training, incentives to enhance the customer experience and offer essential infrastructure to organizations to build their digital future.

“FNTS partnered with Dell EMC to support data driven migration initiatives to an influx of customers wanting to align their workloads with manageable and scalable solutions to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives,” said FNTS President, Kim Whittaker. “FNTS is proud to offer some of the industry’s most innovative, reliable and high-performing EMC solutions that maximize results for organizations. Currently, FNTS partners with Dell EMC to deliver a broad scope of services including private and hybrid cloud, storage, legacy systems and application services. ”

FNTS honored as part of the 2018 Dell EMC Global Partner Summit
for Technical Excellence Partner of the Year Award

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.

As enterprises pursue digital transformations that impact infrastructure and operations, they face evolving IT needs requiring new skills and expertise for either finite project implementations or ongoing infrastructure needs. Simultaneously, some legacy systems, such as mainframes, may require updates and maintenance to remain viable, while other infrastructure needs may call for new platform implementations.

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.

According to the Cisco 2017 Annual Cybersecurity Report, ransomware is growing at a yearly rate of 350 percent. That type of growth means that businesses face a scenario where it’s just a matter of time before they are dealing with ransomware. One way to protect an organization is to develop a sound data backup and recovery strategy.

Company leaders worldwide are taking measures to ensure they will be in compliance with a new and far-reaching law aimed at protecting European citizens from privacy and data breaches. General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR), a data privacy law adopted by the European Union taking effect May 25, 2018, is one of the largest changes in data protection and privacy regulations. GDPR builds upon existing principals set forth in the Data Protection Act and puts tighter obligations and restrictions on data controllers and data processors.

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.

First National Technology Solutions (FNTS) has attained a gold Cloud Platform competency, demonstrating a “best-in-class” ability and commitment to meet Microsoft Corp. customers’ evolving needs in today’s mobile-first, cloud-first world and distinguishing itself within Microsoft’s partner ecosystem.

There are plenty of reputable sources that point to near parity in container adoption versus virtualization, such as SDxCentral’s 2017 Container and Cloud Orchestration Report. The bigger story is the many potential users that are still on the fence about containerization. The hesitation of this significant base of holdouts often stems from the fact that they don’t know as much about containerization as they do about virtualization.