We are suspicious that ‘cloud computing’ is one of those things that isn’t quite here yet, despite the fact that everyone seems to bang on like it is.  For example, the fountains of knowledge up at Gartner claim we will all be living in cloud cuckoo land by a week next Tuesday (OK so maybe it’s more like a sizeable minority by 2012 or something) but perhaps this is too premature. 

According to Computer Weekly, a recent cloud focused event found that many businesses who had embraced the cloud (that just sounds silly doesn’t it?) boasted IT savings of anything up to 90%.  It’s all to do with harnessing utility processing power at cheap accessible rates rather than running your own datacentre/s blah blah blah.

A cloud, earlier

Now permit us to skirt over all of the technical detail here but, merit-worthy as this all sounds, it doesn’t necessarily address all the niggly stuff that IT departments have to contend with on a daily basis.  More technology… pah…how about better processes for a change?  We are supposed to be masters of technology, but the development of cloud computing seems to have everyone contemplating radically different infrastructure set-ups in order to march to its tune.

In the next ten years, you will likely buy a hybrid car rather than an electric one.  Why?  Because the reality is that near-term.  As such, will all your IT really exist within a cloud, or is it more likely that the weather will gather from time to time and then blow away?

It is Friday, which in the Automated IT towers often means an excitable hive of happy activity. We thought we would share in that happiness by highlighting some good news for IT and Technology workers. Silicon have reported that “many IT professionals can expect to see their salary rise by around an average of £10,000 every five years.”

Now before you go cracking open the bubbly, take your time to read the research, it is better to savor good news slowly. Apparently “Techies working in project management are those likely to see the biggest jumps in earnings as they progress up the career ladder.”

Security is one of the IT certainties that you could probably add to the “nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes” proverb. Although, perhaps Benjamin Franklin wasn’t exactly clued up with the debate around automating IT security processes.

One thing Franklin did often refer to was laws; compliance if you will, something that has driven the IT security world (nuts?) for a number of years. Compliance to meet the security and regulatory changes that have occurred in the last decade has been a central factor in the development of IT management processes.

Do you know your PCI from your Data Protection Act; your HIPAA from your MiFiD? Details are just a smokescreen when the problem is that wherever compliance is mandated, it has often meant manual responses such as sifting through security reports and events for malicious activity. This is a hugely inefficient process made worse by regulatory pressure. While regulators will continue to bring in new standards and such like, security has become a far wider, holistic entity within an organisation.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) is one such technology that can greatly aid IT managers in trying to automate and add efficiency to security processes. The benefits to such a solution can include; improved detection of cross-enterprise threats, ending the need to interrogate multiple data sources, space and power savings, and empowering more professionals with less specialised skills to be able to carry out the task. And that’s to say nothing of the enormous compliance benefits…

Forrester Research’s State Of Enterprise IT Budgets: 2009 survey has highlighted that it forecasts enterprises reducing their operating and capital budgets by 3% in the US and 2% in Europe. Perhaps more worryingly, the same research looking exclusively at SMB’s IT budgets found an even steeper reduction in IT budget spend (4% in US, 3% in Europe).

At AutomatedIT we always look for a silver lining – particularly when it comes to automation delivering tangible cost savings for organisations. Even in a reduced budget environment, introducing and extending automation into your IT infrastructure can make any budget go farther and work better. This is particularly important for SMBs, who can generally make more pronounced and beneficial changes than larger organisations

In fact, making those changes, saving money and reducing man power will shine even brighter when budgets contract – you might even get a thank you from your boss, or those prickly lot in the financial department.

Don’t be scared of what the scary research tells you; by using automation, you can embrace the challenge and make your budget go further.