More Business Continuity In Depth

Master MySQL in the Amazon cloud

Amazon Web Services offer new challenges and flexibility for database admins -- here's how to avoid the pitfalls and tune for performance

How to Implement Next-Generation Storage Infrastructure for Big Data

Managing the petabyte-scale and larger data stores that are a fact of life with Big Data is a different beast than managing traditional large-scale data infrastructures. Online photo site Shutterfly--which manages more than 30 petabytes of data--shares its strategy for taming the storage beast.

How the Cloud Democratizes and Complicates Disaster Recovery

When it comes to disaster recovery, the cloud is showing itself to be a mixed bag. CIO.com's Jeff Vance explains how the great shift in technology has both lowered the entry barriers for DR technology and given smaller businesses what could be a dangerous sense of false security.

Disaster Recovery on Double Duty

More and more IT shops are using technologies such as virtualization and replication to make disaster recovery just another service, sometimes using the same servers, network and storage that run order entry, email, application development or other services.

How to get a hot job in big data

The big data revolution is creating a new breed of business-IT jobs -- and threatening to destabilize dyed-in-the-wool IT careers

Elgato's Thunderbolt SSD drive delivers speed, sticker shock

Elgato's external SSD is the first of its kind with a 10Gbps Thunderbolt port, which enables data transfers at more than three times the speed of USB. But there are drawbacks, too.

Flexing NoSQL: MongoDB in review

MongoDB shines with broad programming language support, SQL-like queries, and out-of-the-box scaling

Enterprise Hadoop: Big data processing made easier

Amazon, Cloudera, Hortonworks, IBM, and MapR mix simpler setup of Hadoop clusters with proprietary twists and trade-offs

Fundamental Oracle flaw revealed

A design decision made by Oracle architects long ago may have painted some of Oracle's largest customers into a corner. Patches have arrived, but how much will they correct?

Six Reasons Small Businesses Need Virtualization

If you run a small or mid-sized business, server virtualization promises cost savngs and improved IT efficiency. To help ensure you understand the advantages, we drew up a list of the most tangible benefits that virtualization has to offer small and mid-sized businesses

DigiSafe DiskCrypt does ultra-secure notebook disk encryption -- at a price

How much are you willing to pay to encrypt every bit of data on a notebook disk drive, without compromising performance? AT CES 2012, Singapore-based ST Electronics is showing its new DigiSafe DiskCrypt, which is relatively easy to set up, but it’s also very expensive -- the enclosure alone costs $450.

The cloud, day 21: My data might be safer in the cloud

It seems like an awful lot of faith to put in a third-party to expect it to protect my data. However, there is a flip side to that coin that suggests that maybe my data is better off in their hands than mine.

CIO Letter: Top Ten Tech Predictions for 2012

Michael Friedenberg, President and CEO of CIO magazine, weighs in with his top ten predictions for what will impact the IT-business landscape in 2012.

First look: Oracle NoSQL Database

Oracle's take on the distributed key-value data store is fast, flexible, and enterprise-grade serious

Disaster recovery 101: What you need to know

If your computers went down after the most recent storm and you lost some critical data, dont let that happen again. Read on. Insider (free registration required)

Hands on: StarTech's drive imager as simple as it gets

StarTech has released two devices for duplicating hard drives (or SSDs) to create exact bootable drive copies in about half the time of more traditional methods.

Strategies for Pruning Data in the Cloud

In terrestrial systems, you don't think about disk space. In the clouds, you have to, if you don't it will cost you.

Social media firestorms: A first responder's guide

Has your 'clever' Twitter campaign has backfired and become a PR mess? We offer some advice on how to recover from a social media mistake.

Where there are clouds, there's lightning (and other cloud disaster tips)

When contracting for cloud services, it's vital to anticipate the worst that could happen. Insider (registration required)

Ken Murdoch

Ken Murdoch, CIO at the Save the Children Federation, credits his team with getting the organization's networks back online quickly following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which allowed Save the Children officials to disseminate information and appeal for aid.